


The World Well Lost

by AnnaKnitsSpock



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Accidental Marriage, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amanda Grayson Lives, Amnesia, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Horror, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s01e12 The Conscience of the King, Gol (Star Trek), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mild Gore, Mutual Pining, STID and Beyond don't happen in this universe, Spock's Childhood, Spock's Family - Freeform, Spock's Family Dynamics, Starvation, Tarsus IV, Vulcan Culture, jim's childhood, s'chn t'gai family, why? because i can
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-24 21:30:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 42,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14962537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaKnitsSpock/pseuds/AnnaKnitsSpock
Summary: When Jim and Spock meet as teenagers on Tarsus IV and endure unspeakable horrors together, it seems like nothing can separate them. Until, that is, Jim is forced to burn every last trace of himself from Spock’s mind to keep him safe. Years later, Jim is still a smoldering husk, but it seems amnesia has been good to Spock. To remind him of the world they built together before the famine—and of how it ended—would be too cruel. Wouldn’t it? But when Starfleet tasks the Enterprise with hunting Kodos down, old scars will be torn open and hidden secrets will come to light, forcing Jim and Spock to reconsider everything they thought they knew about their shared history on Tarsus IV.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my contribution to the [2018 Star Trek Reverse Big Bang.](https://startrekreversebang.tumblr.com/) I had the unparalleled honor of collaborating with one of my favorite Star Trek artists, [@deheerkonijn](http://deheerkonijn.tumblr.com/). Her beautiful art that inspired this story can be found [here](http://deheerkonijn.tumblr.com/post/175023836175/when-jim-and-spock-meet-as-teenagers-on-tarsus-iv) and [here](http://deheerkonijn.tumblr.com/post/175023882145/when-jim-and-spock-meet-as-teenagers-on-tarsus-iv). It was an absolute pleasure working with you and I'm beyond thrilled to have a story associated with your art!
> 
> Thanks to my incredible partner [Al](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cohobbitation/pseuds/cohobbitation) for being an ever-patient, kickass beta, and also to [ShevatheGun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShevatheGun/pseuds/ShevatheGun) for swooping in at the last minute to give me a much-needed bonus beta. 
> 
> The title of this fic is from Theodore Sturgeon's groundbreaking 1953 story of the same name, a very early example of queer themes in sci-fi. (Otherwise known as the super gay story Ted wrote a solid 14 years before he wrote the equally gay episode Amok Time.) 
> 
> This **is** a Tarsus IV story and is occasionally graphic, so please heed the tags and warnings.

Jim had learned to keep to himself.

Back in Iowa, at home with Frank, here on Tarsus IV—anywhere his summer-storm temper could smash into another person, he was better off alone.

Most of the students at the colony school were farmers’ kids, on-planet with parents who spent long days in the grain fields or working around the silos. Few of them had ever lived with the clean technological convenience of the Federation’s cities and larger colonies, but had rather bounced from agricultural colony to industrial town as their parents’ work had demanded.

But there were also delinquents like Jim, shipped in from around the quadrant to this distant chunk of weeds. The hope was that they would be broken into submission by the colony’s punitive distance from luxuries and sympathetic friends. Jim could have told the adults involved that the reason most of these kids were here was precisely _because_ they were poor and deprived and had no one to turn to. But what did a smart-mouthed little asshole like him know?

Whatever had brought them to Tarsus IV, Jim and his fellow students were mean, hard, and unhappy. There were plenty of schoolyard fights and plenty of successive detentions spent tilling soil or laying fertilizer—on Tarsus even the detentions were beneficial to the colony’s production. But Jim tried to stay out of trouble: the sooner he could get off this rock the sooner he could try to get out of Iowa. After that, on his own, maybe he could build some kind of life.

And so he kept to himself.

But the older boys were going to eat that new Vulcan kid alive, and Jim just couldn’t let that happen.

Jim pressed the heel of his hand into the cut on his cheek, but it was still bleeding steadily. His head was tilted back to stem the flow of blood from his nose, but that wasn’t doing much either. He wished the principal, Mr. Carter, would just come in and punish him already so he could clean up, or at least bleed freely out in the fields.

“Your hand is not an ideal tool for the restriction of blood flow,” the Vulcan said quietly from the chair next to his, and Jim looked at him sideways.

“Uh, well, it’s kinda all I got.”

The kid was staring at him with the huge, deep wells he had for eyes, skin still flushed green from the skirmish. He only had one little scrape, on his nose, and Jim was proud of himself for breaking up the fight before it got worse. He could take a pummeling: this soft little ambassador's son clearly could not.

The Vulcan looked into his lap as if considering, then reached down to grab the hem of his long black robes and rip off a piece of cloth. He straightened up and held it shyly out to Jim.

“This is not sanitary and you will need to pursue antibiotic treatment, but perhaps it can stop the bleeding for now.”

Jim couldn’t help but grin, head still tipped back. At the way those alien eyes widened, Jim could only assume the huge split in his lip had left his teeth bloody, so he quickly closed his mouth and took the cloth.

“Thanks,” he said, and pressed it hard against his cheek. “What’s your name, by the way?”

“I am Spock.”

“Nice to meet you, Spock. I’m Jim.”

“Jim.” He said the word softly, like he was trying it out. Jim didn’t really know why, but it sent a shiver down his spine. They sat in silence for a few more minutes until Spock’s quiet voice lifted again through the dust-flecked shadows of the principal’s office.

“I do not understand your actions. Please explain why you interrupted the altercation between myself and those three individuals.”

Jim lowered his head, nosebleed mostly gone now, and shrugged. “Everybody’s rough here. No offense, but I can kinda tell you haven’t been in a lot of fights.”

Spock shook his head slightly. “You would, as your people say, be surprised.”

Jim snorted. Whatever “fights” Vulcan kids got into, they probably didn’t involve incessant punches to the face.

“They were going after you ‘cause you’re a Vulcan. It’s not right.”

Spock’s eyes drifted back to him. “And is it your responsibility to defend all Vulcans from xenophobic aliens?”

Jim shrugged, cringing slightly under Spock's relentless stare. “Like I said, I know how to deal with these kids. You don’t.”

Spock finally looked away, tilting his head slightly in acquiescence. “That much is true. I appreciate your… kindness, although it was unnecessary to place yourself in danger for me.”

“I mean it,” Jim said. Spock just wasn’t quite getting it. “Tarsus IV isn’t a nice place and the people who live here aren’t nice either. You need to be careful.”

“ _You_ seem nice,” Spock said, so quietly Jim could barely hear him. His breath caught in his throat, but before he could tell Spock that no, he was most definitely _not_ nice, the door finally opened and the principal strode in.

“Mr. Kirk,” he said, sitting behind his desk and looking at them in turn. “Mr. Spock.”

“Mr. Carter,” Spock said uncertainty, as if he thought they were all just saying each other’s names in a human custom he didn’t quite understand. Jim stifled a laugh.

Mr. Carter gave Spock a weird look but went on without comment. “Detention for both of you, starting as soon as you leave my office. Only because this is your first time. Get involved in a fight again and it’ll be a week’s worth.”

“Wait, Mr. Carter—” Jim started, at the same time as Spock said, “It is imperative that you understand—”

They stopped and stared at each other, surprised. Mr. Carter took the opportunity to hum disapprovingly into the silence.

“Two days for you now, Kirk. Spock, you might not know the rules yet, but students don’t question punishments here. Don’t make the same mistake twice.”

“You do not understand, sir,” Spock pressed, and Jim couldn’t help but feel a little tug of admiration. Maybe this shy, wimpy Vulcan was secretly kind of a badass. “I merely wished to provide you with more context for the situation, which is relevant because Mr. Kirk involved himself in the fight only to prevent a xenophobic attack upon my person. Thus, he does not deserve punishment.”

“Spock,” Jim said in surprise, “It’s fine, don’t worry about it. But, Mr. Carter, Spock wasn’t fighting at all—Jerry and Max and Elias went at him unprovoked. He’s the one that doesn’t deserve detention.”

Mr. Carter stared between the two of them. He seemed momentarily at a loss for words.

“Two detentions for you, Mr. Kirk, and one for you, Mr. Spock,” he repeated finally. “Be grateful it’s not more. You can go now.”

Spock actually opened his mouth to talk back _again_ , but Jim grabbed his sleeve and pulled him up with a muttered, “Thank you, Mr. Carter,” before dragging Spock out of the office.

“But this is not fair treatment,” Spock insisted as Jim led them toward the back of the school and the attached grain fields. Jim rolled his eyes.

“Look, this is exactly what I’m talking about. You need to learn how things work around here. Nobody else is an ambassador’s kid—we’re all rednecks or criminals or both. Things _aren’t_ fair. Just keep your head down. That’s the best you can do, ok?”

They pushed out through the back doors into the harsh Tarsus sunlight, where a little group of kids was standing around waiting for their detention assignment. The boys from the fight were among them, and stared at Jim and Spock meaningfully.

But before they could start things up again, Mr. Carter came out to tell them they’d be clearing weeds for two hours, and they all moved off into the rows of grain. “No talking!” he called after them, and they got to work.

Jim glanced at Spock and found him a few rows over, looking around in confusion. But he was obviously studying what the other boys were doing and started copying them. He met Jim’s gaze once and Jim gave him a little smile, which Spock returned with a blank but possibly friendly Vulcan expression.

After an hour or so Jim started to hear faint whispers and tittering, and when he looked up again he saw Spock trip on the hem of his robes as he tugged on a weed, falling forward onto his knees. Jim glanced back at Mr. Carter, who was thankfully paying no attention, and crossed the rows to Spock, helping him up by the elbow.

“Not really used to manual labor?” he asked quietly, but Spock, clearly frustrated, shook him off.

“On the contrary, Vulcans are three times stronger than humans and I completed an extreme ritual of desert survival when I was only six standard years of age. I am more than capable of pulling _weeds_.”

He softened at little at Jim’s amused, skeptical look.

“However,” he amended, “I am not yet accustomed to the gravity on this planet.”

Jim positioned himself behind Spock, blocking him from the principal’s view. “Just hang out in front of me. I’ll do it for you, but make sure Carter doesn’t see you.”

“Why are you helping me?” Spock asked. There was a hint of suspicion in his voice and Jim wanted to reassure him, but he didn’t really know the answer to that question himself. He shrugged.

“Cause I’m an upstanding young man,” he said sarcastically and then, more seriously, “Don’t worry about it. Just stay right in front of me.”

For another hour he worked quickly, pulling double the weeds while Spock stood quietly in front of him, moving along the row to the rhythm of Jim’s work.

—-

It turned out Spock was in a bunch of Jim’s classes. Though Jim tried not to get involved, the other kids refused to leave Spock alone and for some crazy, unfathomable reason, Jim just couldn’t let things be.

After Jim rescued Spock from a few more scuffles and helped them narrowly avoid more joint detentions, they started sitting next to each other in class and eating meals together in the cafeteria, and Jim was forced to grudgingly accept that he had made a friend.

One day after class, some of the other boys chased them off campus and into the colony center, where Jim managed to lose them by pulling Spock into an alley between the hardware store and the tiny grocery.

When they were sure the boys were gone, they crept out onto the bleak strip of storefronts that made up the center, keeping to the shadows just to be sure, but there was no sign of any other school kids.

They finally stopped to rest on a bench, and after a few minutes of silence, Jim noticed Spock was shivering.

“Hey, are you ok?” he asked, turning to find Spock green in the face, holding his arms. “Are you cold?”

“Yes,” Spock said, not looking at him as if he was embarrassed. “I am accustomed to a desert environment and while it may be summer here, I still find it uncomfortably cool.”

“Why didn’t you pack a coat?”

“I did. It was stolen by Tobias Resley on my second day at school.”

“Ugh, what a shithead. Here.” Jim unzipped his bag and pulled out the letterman jacket he brought along for chilly mornings. He draped it over Spock’s shoulders and Spock looked at him in surprise, but put his arms through the sleeves and tucked the jacket around him nonetheless.

“I’m not exactly a letterman jacket kind of guy,” Jim said with a shrug, “But this was my brother’s and it’s warm and stuff so…”

He trailed off. The silence went a little long before Spock said, “I understood very little of that statement, but thank you for lending this to me.”

Jim laughed, pulled up from the sad thoughts he had started to sink into.

“Let’s take a walk,” he suggested. “You’ll be warmer if we get moving.”

They left the square and went out into the scrubby farmland beyond, past the houses until they were out in the brush. They walked without talking—Jim had noticed that he and Spock slipped into silence often, but it was surprisingly comfortable, not an awkward, uncertain silence. Maybe it was because Spock was Vulcan, choosing his words carefully and not chattering just to fill the quiet.

Eventually, Spock said, “You mentioned your brother. Is he your only sibling?”

“Yeah,” Jim said. “Sam. He left home a few years ago.”

“He is much older than you?”

“Well, not much. I’m 14, he’s 18.”

“But is it not customary in your culture for children to remain at home through their teenage years, and often longer?”

“Yeah.”

Jim looked up at the wide, bright sky, not sure how much more he wanted to say. It seemed Spock understood, though, because after a moment he said quietly, “I also have a brother who has had… difficulty within our family.”

“Yeah?” Jim asked, suddenly unbearably curious to find out about Spock’s life on Vulcan. Spock nodded.

“He is called Sybok. Although he is the only full Vulcan of my father’s children, he has never been as committed to our culture as my father wishes.” He looked sidelong at Jim, probably anticipating the question Jim wanted to ask but wasn’t sure was appropriate. “My mother is human.”

“Oh,” said Jim. “Cool. So… what about your other siblings?”

“I have one other: an older sister, Michael. She is a human whom my parents adopted early in her childhood.”

“Wow. That’s quite a family.”

“Indeed.”

“How old are you exactly?”

“16 standard years of age.”

“Really?” Jim glanced at him. He was no taller than Jim; he wouldn’t have guessed Spock was two whole years older than him. “You look younger.”

“So I have been told.”

They fell into silence again, walking. Spock looked so funny with Jim’s jacket over his Vulcan robes that he couldn’t help smiling over at him, just a little too long. If Spock noticed, he gave no indication.

Jim would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that Spock was really cute. Even with—or maybe because of—the bowl cut.

“So why’re you here? It’s ok if you don’t want to say,” he amended quickly.

Spock didn’t say anything for a moment, considering. And then, “May I suggest a trade of information? I admit that I am interested to know your answer to the same question.”

“Sure,” Jim smiled. “My story’s not complicated, though—my stepdad’s an asshole and I’m an asshole and we don’t get along. I was getting in trouble at school and stuff. Mostly fighting. I went to juvie when I was 11, and I’ve just kinda been… screwing up since then.” Jim scuffed the ground with his toe as they walked, realizing this was all a little more personal than he’d intended. “My stepdad convinced my mom to send me here to straighten me out. And here I am.”

He glanced at Spock and found him staring, eyebrows furrowed. Jim looked away again. Damn, he should have thought this through. A nice Vulcan wasn’t going to want to be friends with a loser like him.

He hadn’t even _wanted_ a friend, so why the hell did his stomach hurt at the prospect of not hanging out with Spock?

“If I understand you correctly,” Spock said slowly, “You are indicating that you were incarcerated at 11?”

Anxiety spread out to the tips of Jim’s fingers. “Uh, basically. Yeah.”

“With a few extreme examples I doubt you are guilty of, I can see no logical reason to imprison a child. May I ask what offense caused this?”

He was prying—on a human it probably would have been rude. But Spock seemed genuinely curious, maybe even… concerned?

“I drove a car off a cliff. My stepdad thought it was his but it wasn’t—it was my dad’s. Oh, uh, my dad died when I was a baby. The day I was born, actually. And my brother had just run away from home and my stepdad was… not being nice about it. So I drove the car off a cliff.”

Spock stopped walking. Jim turned to him reluctantly.

“A cliff? Can you clarify?”

“Uh, well there’s this quarry in the town where I grew up and it has this sheer dropoff into a canyon. Probably, I dunno, a kilometer above the ground?”

There was short, shocked silence and then Spock said simply, “You should have died.”

Jim felt like Spock had slapped him. Spock was so, well, _gentle_. He was expecting maybe an awkward social distance forming between them after this conversation, not Spock saying he wished Jim was _dead_.

Jim turned on his heel to head back to town—fuck it, he didn’t need this bullshit—but Spock’s hand shot out and grabbed him by the elbow.

“Please, my words conveyed a meaning other than what I intended.”

Jim looked back at him and his face was surprisingly expressive, distress in his eyes as if he had messed up and was upset about it.

“You must remember that Standard is not my native language. What I meant to express is confusion about how you survived such an encounter, and regret that you have not only experienced such trauma but also that you nearly lost your life. I am relieved that you did not.”

Jim slowly turned his body back toward to him. Spock hadn’t let go of his elbow.

“Oh. Um, thanks.”

“I am not well-versed in human emotional needs, but I doubt incarceration was the proper response—therapeutic counselling would perhaps have been more effective?”

“Yeah,” Jim snorted. “That wasn’t going to happen. My family’s not exactly the talk-about-your-feelings type.”

“Nor is mine,” Spock admitted quietly, finally letting go of Jim’s elbow and starting to walk again.

“Isn’t that kind of the norm?” Jim asked, falling into step with him.

“Yes,” Spock said, “But my siblings and I have all struggled to… find our way toward pure Vulcan logic. It is a source of disappointment to my father.”

“But didn't he expect that when he adopted a human kid and then had a baby with a human?”

Spock’s lips quirked in what might have been a tiny rueful smile. “One would think so. We have been raised in the Vulcan way, however, and are expected to follow it.”

“Doesn’t seem fair,” Jim said with a shrug.

“Perhaps not. In any event, I am on this colony for reasons not dissimilar to your own. When I was 13, I attacked a schoolmate for insulting my mother. In the interim three years there have been enough incidents for my father to label my behavior ‘inappropriate and lacking in logic.’ 4 months, 11 days ago, I engaged in physical fighting again, breaking the nose of an older boy who asked if I would follow my father’s quest to engage in intercourse with alien females.”

Jim gaped and then, after a moment, laughed out loud. “Dude, that’s _awesome_.”

Spock looked sidelong at him. “Clearly not, as it has created turmoil in my family and resulted in my forced relocation to this colony.”

Jim clapped him on the shoulder, grinning. “I guess, but otherwise we wouldn’t have met, and I’m glad we did.”

Spock’s eyes softened in a way that, inexplicably, filled Jim with warmth. “As am I.”

—-

On warm Friday nights, Jim and Spock started sneaking out to the edge of the scrubby woods surrounding the colony. They had found a spot under a rock overhang where they felt thoroughly hidden. Some seeds must have escaped the fields and landed here, for there were long stalks of wild grain growing right up to the rockface, and Jim and Spock had flattened just enough of them to make a small hollow where they could sit knee-to-knee.

It was… intimate. Jim was hyper aware of that fact, but had no idea how Spock perceived it. He certainly wasn’t going to ask.

One night, Jim stole a bottle of whiskey one of the older boys had stolen from a teacher, and eagerly snuck it out to the secret spot. Spock politely accepted a few sips, but explained that it had little effect on him. He nonetheless encouraged Jim to enjoy himself in moderation, and promised that he would help him back to their dorm if necessary.

After a few good swigs Jim’s limbs went heavy and fuzzy. “You shouldn’t encourage me, you know. I’m only 14,” he said with a crooked smile. Spock shrugged, just slightly. It was still a lot for a Vulcan.

“I am not your keeper. You have been told what to do enough in your life; you should be allowed some of your own decisions.”

Jim smiled wider. “You’re a weird Vulcan, you know that?”

Spock’s lips did that thing they did when he was trying not to smile. “Yes, I assure you I am aware of that fact.”

After a few more sips, Jim’s brain felt slow and sweet, a pleasant buzzing in his ears. “Hey,” he said, and the awareness that he shouldn’t ask this question was very faint, “don’t punch me, but _do_ you want to fuck alien women? Is that, like, a genetic thing?”

Spock’s eyes started to shutter, and Jim cursed himself. But then Spock sighed in a resigned sort of way and looked down. “I do not believe there is a genetic component of any kind,” he said very quietly. “But either way, I am not… I do not…”

He trailed off. Jim had never seen him quite so lost for words.

“I am not attracted to females of any species,” Spock whispered, very deliberately not looking at Jim. A tipsy thrill of relief went through Jim, all the way to his toes, and it took him a moment to realize that Spock was flushed bright green and that there had been a hollow note of shame in his voice. Jim’s hand shot out before he could think it through and grabbed Spock’s arm. Spock looked up at him in surprise.

“Hey!” Jim said. “You don’t feel bad for being gay, do you?”

“Gay,” Spock mouthed doubtfully, as if he’d never said it before. Jim realized he probably hadn’t—it was such a _human_ word. Jim tried a reassuring smile but it didn’t feel right, so he just stared hard into Spock’s eyes and nodded into the silence.

“I am already different enough,” Spock said finally. “On Vulcan, homosexuality is not… taboo, per say, but neither is it common nor universally accepted.”

“Well fuck ‘em, then,” Jim said, starting to slur. Spock raised an eyebrow in mild surprise, but he was pretty used to Jim’s irreverence by now. “There’s nothing wrong with liking guys. You’re perfect.”

Both of Spock’s eyebrows jumped high at that, and Jim looked away, embarrassed.

“And you?” Spock said after a moment. “To what sex are you attracted?”

“All of them,” Jim said firmly, looking back and meeting Spock in the eye.

He didn’t tell him that he too was ashamed of his attractions, had been ever since the time Frank found him jerking off to a queer holovid and dragged him outside into the front yard to beat him harder than he ever had. He was screaming “faggot” so loud that the neighbors heard from the next farm over and came to see what was wrong, but Frank had shouted at them to mind their own business and they did. People were scared of Frank and gave him a wide berth.

Jim had learned to keep to himself.

But now Spock was staring at him with no judgement, some deep, electric emotion in his eyes.

“Fascinating,” he said in a low voice, and Jim giggled drunkenly. What a weird thing to say.

Spock’s lips quirked and they were silent, watching each other, until the quiet stretched too long and became awkward.

Jim changed the subject.

—-

As summer wilted into fall, the mood on Tarsus IV started to shift. No one at school knew why, but they did know that the adults were tense. The teachers were talking to each other in hushed whispers, and there were more farmers in the town square than usual, grim-faced and jittery. There were rumors from some of the farmers’ kids about a problem with the crops, but there was no more information than that.

Whatever was happening, Jim suspected it was making life very unpleasant in the farmhouses. The same kids spreading rumors about the crops started coming to school with tell-tale signs: bruises peeking out from their collars, long sleeves even on hot days, a black eye here and there. Parents were under _some_ kind of pressure, and Jim knew all too well about adults who took out their anxiety on whatever child was nearby and convenient.

Unfortunately, the meaner the parents got, the meaner their kids got in turn. Jim and Spock started having to work even harder to dodge bullies and detentions, and the other kids were so relentless that they could barely escape to their secret spot without being followed. A few times they had to just give in and accept a beating, knowing it would be even worse if they fought back.

To Jim’s dismay, the taunting began to focus on their obvious closeness and what exactly they were to each other. The bullies could think of no insult to Jim’s sexuality he hadn’t already leveled at himself, so the vicious teasing didn’t really faze him. But he knew Spock was hypersensitive to it, and the punched-out look in Spock’s eyes when he was called a faggot made Jim dangerously angry.

It came to a head on a particularly cold afternoon, when Jim and Spock were walking out of school and Jim noticed Spock shivering. He stopped and pulled the letterman jacket out of his bag, draping it over Spock’s shoulders.

“Just keep this, ok?” he admonished—Spock had been insisting on returning the jacket whenever he borrowed it, despite Jim telling him he didn’t have to. “You’re only going to get colder from now on.”

“And you?” Spock asked, putting his arms through the sleeves, “Will you not also be colder as the weather turns?”

“You need it more,” Jim said firmly, and zipped the jacket up to punctuate his point.

“Awwwww, is your _boyfriend_ lending you his jacket, pointy-ears?”

Jim and Spock tensed at the familiar voice of one of the worst bullies, who they now saw striding over to them across the school yard, two of his cronies behind him.

“Leave it, Jerry,” Jim said as Jerry reached them, letting his hands drop to his sides.

But of course Jerry ignored him, getting up in their space and plucking at the jacket’s collar.

“A _letterman_ jacket? You must really like that human dick in your ass, huh Spock?’

Spock’s eyebrows shot up and he jerked away from Jerry. Jim didn’t know a lot about Vulcans and sex, but he knew it was very private, and that Spock probably felt legitimately threatened by the crude profanity.

“ _Leave it_ ,” he repeated, but Jerry and his friends just laughed, and without warning one of them grabbed Jim and wrenched his arms behind his back. Jerry did the same to Spock and they were shoved together, chest-to-chest, the jacket’s zipper digging into Jim’s sternum.

“Why don’t you kiss, cocksuckers?”

“Get off me!” Jim wrestled frantically against the iron grip on his arms. Poor Spock was bright green, unable to meet Jim’s eyes. They were pushed closer together, hips glancing, and Jim was shocked to feel the unmistakable line of Spock’s erection. Knowing that Spock would be mortified gave Jim the strength to break away, rushing Jerry and pushing him hard to make him let go of Spock.

Spock predictably shrunk in on himself, eyes horrified and full of shame.

“Fucking fag!” Jerry shouted, and answered Jim’s push with a punch directly to his eye. When Spock shot out to shield him, Jerry turned and swung a punch at him too, but Spock blocked it with a growl that shocked everyone, Jim included, into stillness. Jim recovered quick, though, and took off at a run, grabbing Spock’s sleeve as he went by.

It didn’t take long for the boys to regain their bearings and start chasing them, but the headstart was enough for Jim and Spock to reach the woods and lose the bullies by zigzagging through different trails. Finally, nearly sure they were safe, they slowed down and made their way to the cliff face in silence.

Spock started fussing over Jim’s eye as soon as they sat down, wetting the sleeve of his robe with his water bottle and dabbing at the cut on Jim’s eyebrow.

“I’m sorry that happened,” Jim said quietly.

“It is not your fault.”

“I know I’m just… expressing sympathy. I think maybe we should go to the teachers tomorrow about Jerry and everybody. They can’t keep going at you like this.”

“Nor at you. Do you believe the teachers will be of any assistance?”

“I don’t know. Probably not, but it’s worth a try.”

Spock nodded in acquiescence. They lapsed into silence again but then Jim sighed loudly. He knew it would make Spock uncomfortable but he had to try to comfort him, to reassure him. “Look. Don’t be embarrassed about… you know. The hard-on thing.”

Spock stopped dabbing and flushed a bright, spring-leaf green.

“It’s normal,” Jim went on. “Happens all the time and it doesn’t mean anything. Just don’t worry about it, ok?”

Spock dropped his hand and looked away. He didn’t say anything, just pulled the letterman jacket tight. Jim cast around for something to lighten the mood.

“And I mean, hey—who could blame you? I’m a super hot piece of ass and, as Jerry so eloquently expressed, you _are_ super duper gay.”

Spock finally looked up and Jim was pleased to see his eyebrow raised, his lip quirked. “And _you_ , Jim, are not only excessively homosexual, but also extraordinarily arrogant.”

Jim grinned, hoping he looked way more cocky than he felt. “I’m excessively homosexual, heterosexual, and all the other sexuals. Thus I’m way cooler than you.”

Spock shook his head, clearly losing his battle with himself to avoid a smile. Having achieved his purpose, Jim leaned back against the rock wall and gently prodded his swollen eye.

“Do not touch it,” Spock chided. “You may cause infection.”

Jim sighed petulantly but dropped his hand. Evening was settling around them, early stars beginning to wink on the horizon.

“The sky is nice from this planet,” Jim muttered, sick of talking about bullies and boys and the shame he was trying to excise from Spock but couldn’t get rid of himself.

Spock followed his gaze and nodded. “My mother and I enjoy stargazing from our porch on Vulcan. She taught me to identify Earth from an early age. I suppose she misses it.”

Jim shrugged. “It’s overrated.” He felt Spock look at him but kept staring up into the bruise-dark sky. “I wouldn’t mind if I never went back there.”

“Where would you go instead?”

“Up there. Into space.”

“I was unaware that you desired such a career. Will you pursue Starfleet Academy?”

“ _No_ ,” Jim snorted. “Starfleet can kiss my ass. Both my parents were Starfleet. My mom still is. My dad died on a ‘Fleet ship, and my mom’s been escaping to Starfleet so she doesn’t have to see me ever since. I’m nothing to her but a reminder of my dad.”

After a moment of processing Jim’s sudden confession, Spock murmured, “I am sorry.”

“No big deal,” Jim lied with a shrug, and luckily Spock took the hint, looking back up at the sky.

“I too desire space travel,” he said, and Jim smiled in surprise despite himself.

“Yeah?”

“Yes. It is an endless source of discovery and revelation. I am curious what I might find there.”

A warm feeling spread through Jim’s chest. Random boners were no big deal, but this crush he had developed on Spock, the one that kept sinking deeper and deeper into him, was kind of a problem.

“I aspire to attend the Vulcan Science Academy, but I am hopeful that a career in the sciences may offer opportunities for space travel.”

Against his better judgement, Jim leaned a little closer, letting their shoulders rest lightly together. Spock didn’t move away.

“Well, when I’m an awesome space explorer for hire and I have my own ship, maybe you can be my science officer.”

Spock turned to look at him, tiny smile faint in the gathering darkness.

“I believe I would like that.”

—-

They left the dorm early the next morning, hoping to talk to the teachers before the day got started. The school hallways were eerily quiet, their footsteps loud on the tile. But there was sound coming from the teachers’ staff room so they made their way there, standing in the open doorway.

The teachers were gathered around a hovering holo screen that was playing the colony news. A nervous-looking government official was saying “—encouraged not to worry. The issue is being controlled, and the contaminant is not widespread. Farmers are directed to report to the agricultural supply depot for government-issued fungicides—”

Suddenly one of the teachers, Mr. Dubois, noticed Jim and Spock. With a wordless exclamation he slammed a button on his PADD to collapse the holo. The other teachers all whipped around, anger and fear on their faces. Jim had no idea what was going on, but he didn’t like it.

“What are you doing here?” Mr. Dubois snapped. “Stop eavesdropping!”

“W– we weren’t eavesdropping,” Jim said. “Sorry. We just need to talk to someone. About some stuff the other kids are doing.”

“Fine—what?” Mr. Dubois said shortly. Jim had a feeling this wasn’t going to be well-received.

Spock took over. “We have both been physically attacked by Jerry Dale and Tobias Resley and others. These encounters are unprovoked and have resulted in injuries.”

“Have you had to go to the infirmary?”

“Well–” Spock faltered, “No. But you can clearly see that Jim’s ocular cavity is bruised—”

Their History of Starfleet teacher, Mrs. Pollack, cut him off. “I saw you all in the courtyard yesterday. I heard what Jerry was saying. If you don’t want them to pick on you, I suggest you stop flaunting yourselves.”

Jim and Spock stood frozen in stunned silence before Jim found his voice again. “ _Flaunting_ ourselves?”

“I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with… the way you are,” Mrs. Pollack said. “But kids your age can be cruel. I’m suggesting you be more subtle.”

“We’ve never done anything like that!” Jim protested, a flush spreading over his chest and up his face. “I don’t know what you think’s going on but we’re not like, making out in the hallways—we– we’re not even dating!”

Another teacher, one Jim didn’t know, raised his hand. “We don’t need the details. Just keep private matters private and you shouldn’t run into trouble.”

Jim stared in shock at the little group of adults. They stared back. This was useless.

“Come on, Spock,” he muttered, turning on his heel and stalking away down the corridor. Spock jogged to catch up to him.

“Ignore them,” Jim spat. “Fucking homophobic fucks. I’m sorry you had to hear that.”

“You were also subjected to their bigotry,” Spock pointed out, but Jim shook his head roughly.

“I don’t fucking care. Fuck them. Any other problems we have, we’re not fucking going to them. We’ll take care of ourselves.”

Spock grabbed Jim’s arm, forcing him to a stop. His eyes bored hard into Jim’s, black and insistent.

“Yes,” he agreed. “We will take care of ourselves. We will take care of each other.”

That took Jim by surprise, and he drew a sharp breath, then took a moment to collect himself. “Yeah. Alright.”

They headed off down the hallway again at a slower pace, but the prospect of going to first period loomed more unpleasant with every step Jim took.

“Hey,” he said, leaning close to Spock’s ear since students were staring to file in, “What do you say we skip class today?”

Spock hesitated like he wanted to say no—Jim had a feeling he’d never skipped a class in his entire life. But then he nodded, no trace of reluctance, and Jim grinned.

They hurried out a side door and took a back route into the woods, where they spent the rest of the day tracing animal trails, talking about starship designs and deep-space physics. The last of the summer bugs hummed in the chilly air, and everything was still; peaceful.

—-

Things went to hell like this:

The crops rotted. The rumors passed from the farmer’s kids had proved true. It was what the adults had been whispering about. Governor Kodos reassured the colony that their reserve technology could handle the crisis, but it was general knowledge that there were only a handful of outdated, unreliable replicators on Tarsus.

When food ration chips were distributed one bright October morning, panic began to creep in. Anxious gossip spread through the school like wind in the festering grain, and by the end of the day, Spock had had a weeks’ worth of ration chips stolen. Jim had never seen such naked emotion in his eyes; even Spock was affected by the fearful atmosphere, and having no access to food was clearly something he couldn’t rationalize with logic and meditation.

“It’s ok,” Jim assured him as they hurried to their secret spot after school. “I’ll share with you.”

“We both require the full allotment of nutrients in each rationed serving. They are insufficient as it is.”

He was walking too fast; Jim couldn’t keep up with his powerful Vulcan strides. He grabbed him by the arm and Spock turned to him with those big, wide eyes, mouth set in a too-straight line.

“We’ll work it out somehow, ok? I’m not going to let you starve. I’ll take care of it.”

Spock opened his mouth like he wanted to ask how Jim intended to “take care of it,” but then he closed it again slowly. Jim had the distinct impression that he was surrendering to the illogical comfort of Jim’s baseless promise.

They took off again for the cliff face. The grain here wasn’t rotted but neither was it edible; it was wild and uncultivated, mostly stalk and leaves, only a few stunted kernels. Spock sat down heavily, staring at the dirt, and Jim followed more slowly.

“Here,” he said, taking out the protein pack and piece of fruit leather he’d been given at dismissal. He broke the bar in half, tore the strip evenly, and handed Spock his share. Spock seemed too freaked out to protest anymore, and started eating carefully, methodically.

“It is scientifically proven that if one eats mindfully, one feels fuller.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that too,” Jim said softly. “Hey, Spock? Are you ok?”

He knew he wasn’t, but he wanted to give him the chance to lie if he wanted.

But Spock didn’t lie, admitting, “No. Jim, I am… frightened. It is illogical to consider future outcomes of a current situation, but I find I cannot stop intrusive thoughts of what will happen on this colony if we do not have sufficient provisions. The colony does not have adequate communications systems to request aid.”

“Yeah, I thought of that, too, but I’m sure it’ll be fine. Governor Kodos probably put out a call to Starfleet at the first sign of trouble. It should get here in time.”

Obviously, it didn’t get there in time. In fact, Kodos never even made a call. He saw an opportunity and he took it, took his chance to thin the herd, trim the fat. But they didn’t know that until later.

—-

“Spock, come _on_ ,” Jim hissed, pushing through the people crowding the town square. Spock was several paces behind him, jumping every time someone bumped into him, his hands raised as if he was just barely resisting the urge to cover his ears. His eyes were wild, overwhelmed. Jim suspected he was oversensitive to the stimulation of voices and bodies and smells, but they didn’t have time for that right now.

He doubled back and grabbed Spock’s wrist through his sleeve, careful not to add skin-to-skin contact to Spock’s overstimulation. It seemed very likely that the throng was heading toward a riot, the colony’s panic spinning tighter and higher as Kodos retreated from the public eye, no word on how they would be saved from this disaster. There were hints of the colonists being sorted into mysterious categories, and no one knew what that meant but everyone was terrified by it.

Jim dragged Spock behind him and they disappeared between some buildings, totally unnoticed by the pulsing crowd. He kept dragging him until they were safely in their hiding spot.

Spock pulled instantly away from him, pressing his fingers to his face and taking deep, shaking breaths.

“I’m sorry,” Jim panted, hands on his knees and a stitch in his side, “I know that was a lot for you but we had to get out. That crowd was getting ugly.”

Spock shook his head frantically, one of the least controlled movements Jim had ever seen him make. “It is I who should… should apologize. I am… naturally s– sensitive to sensory… stimulation and, furthermore, my telepathic shields are c– currently weak. I endangered us with my lack of telepathic control, I am s– sorry. I was inundated by the emotions of that crowd. Jim—” he looked up suddenly, desperation in the sharp angles of his face. “Everyone was so terrified, so– so _primally_ afraid, I cannot– I have not–”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Jim held up his hands, stopping Spock’s rambling panic. “Listen, it’ll be…” But he couldn’t say it would be ok. He had no idea if anything would ever be ok again. He took a deep breath. “Can I touch you?”

Spock stared at him for a moment. “Yes. Please. Though not against my skin.”

Jim nodded, taking hold of Spock’s biceps and squeezing gently. “I can’t even imagine how awful that must have been. It was scary enough without feeling everyone else’s feelings. It’s not your fault that your shields are weak. Let’s both just sit down and catch our breath, ok?”

Spock was leaning heavily into Jim’s hold and went willingly when he steered him onto the ground.

“Would meditation help?”

“Yes,” Spock said, his voice fragile. “But I do not want to leave you with the sole responsibility of watching for danger.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Jim assured him. “I’ve got it. Just take care of yourself.”

“Thank you,” Spock whispered. He arranged himself in the meditation pose Jim had seen him take before, and Jim listened while his breath evened out, slowed. He tried to match his own to Spock’s until they were breathing in tandem, a whispering, wordless rhythm. Jim scanned the treeline, breathing.

—-

They snuck carefully back to the colony center the next day, hoping things would have cooled down and there might be news of an evacuation.

What they found instead were horrifying remnants of last night’s riot: smoking piles of trash, broken windows, a burnt-out building, and, worst of all, several bodies strewn throughout the square.

“Oh my god,” Jim whispered. Spock reached out and grabbed his wrist, not even bothering to avoid his skin.

“We must go,” he said urgently. “There is clearly no safety to be found here.”

Jim nodded slowly, unable to tear his gaze away from the eyes of one of the corpses, open and staring into the cold, foggy morning. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”

They hurried away from the settlement at a jog. When a stitch started burning in his side, Jim squeezed his eyes shut against the pain, but the image of the blood-soaked square filled his mind and he quickly opened his eyes again.

He found Spock watching him and got the distinct impression that he wasn’t the only one who wouldn’t sleep tonight, whose mind had been permanently polluted by what he had just seen.

They didn’t speak as they fled through the pestilent fields.

—-

They made a few subsequent trips back to the colony, trying to gather information and food. There was little to be had of either—Kodos had still not appeared in public, not even after another riot killed eight more people. No one knew what was happening and daily rations were now at one protein pack a day.

With no adults to protect them and make sure their rations weren’t stolen, young children on the colony by themselves were especially vulnerable. There weren’t many of them, and their number was shrinking suspiciously. A rumor started circulating that they were being picked off by Kodos’s guards, probably because they were the greatest burdens on the collapsing, underfed population.

Finally, sneaking back to the colony became too dangerous, and Jim and Spock were forced to stay hidden out by the cliff face. They had stolen a cache of protein packs and set up their own rationing system: three pieces of the tasteless bars per day for each of them.

Spock and Jim had both managed to hang on to their backpacks and each had a water bottle, which they filled daily from the stream that ran through the colony and out into the woods. Jim could only pray that the water stayed clean, that some further disaster—maybe a silo being destroyed and dumping runoff into the stream—didn’t contaminate it.

And so they waited, hidden in the wild grain that had now also rotted, dry and cracking in the bitter wind. They didn’t really know what they were waiting for, although there were really only two possible outcomes now. Either they would be rescued, or they would die.

So they waited.

—-

Jim had noticed that sunsets on Tarsus were deep crimson sometimes, a mocking blood red. It gave the twilight an eerie, ruddy glow.

On watch, a week after their escape into the forest, Jim alternated between staring up at the sky and peering through the surrounding trees for intruders. He kept his ears pricked, but all he could hear was the movement of leaves in the dull breeze.

Beside him, Spock stirred and sat up, tightening Sam’s letterman jacket around himself. He hadn’t taken it off for a while now, the air colder every day. He had tried to give it back, but Jim had refused. Spock needed it more.

“Can’t sleep?” Jim murmured. Spock shook his head.

“I am too hungry. And too cold.”

“C’mere,” Jim said, holding out his arm.

Spock hesitated, but only briefly. He practically scurried to tuck up against Jim’s side, head on his shoulder. Jim held him tight, rubbing his arm briskly to warm him up. Spock was all angles and awkward bones, holding himself tense, so Jim slowed his hand against Spock’s arm, soothing rather than warming.

“Relax,” he said. “You’re not gonna crush me.”

Spock’s muscles loosened. “I am not accustomed to… this type of physical contact.”

Jim rested his head on top of Spock’s. “Well. Nothing about any of this is exactly _customary_.”

“That is true.”

They didn’t speak for a long time, maybe an hour or more. Jim slowly ran his palm up and down Spock’s arm, and the increasing heaviness of Spock’s body against his made Jim hope he had fallen asleep. But eventually, Spock’s quiet voice disturbed the silence.

“I am experiencing persistent pain in what feels like my entire muscular-skeletal structure, but I do not believe that to be a realistic possibility. Are you experiencing a similar sensation?”

Jim sighed. “We’re starving, Spock. Starving hurts.”

“I have not extensively studied the effects of malnutrition, but this nonetheless seems extreme.”

“This isn’t malnutrition. It’s starvation. It’s different.”

“Oh.” Suddenly Spock’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Yes, of course.”

Jim squeezed him slightly. It was a pale reassurance, but it was all he had.

After another long silence, Spock said, “Your physical touch relieves the pain somewhat. May I touch you in a similar manner to provide comfort as well as receive it?”

Jim was apparently not too far gone for his stomach to flip pleasantly. How strange, that a crush could survive such a destructive nightmare.

“Um, yeah. Sure. Thanks.”

Spock lifted his hand to Jim’s sternum, rubbing methodically up his chest and back down the hollow of his empty stomach. Spock was right: there was relief in the firm pressure of Spock’s fingers against his aching skin, his howling belly. For a few minutes he just enjoyed it, but then, to his surprise, he started crying for the first time since this whole mess started. He had been trying to be strong for Spock, but there was catharsis in Spock’s touch, something too big for him to contain.

Spock raised his head as Jim’s breath went short, his chest heaving sharp little sobs.

“I apologize, did I—”

Jim shook his head. “You didn’t do anything, sorry. Shit, I’m sorry. It just. That felt nice, I’m– Fuck, sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?”

“I mean, you’re already at your limit, it can’t help to deal with emotional expression and stuff.”

Unexpectedly, Spock reached up to touch Jim’s cheek, his thumb tracing a line of Jim’s tears. “Your emotions do not disturb me. It is likely unhealthy for you to repress your emotional reactions in this crisis. What is happening to us is... beyond logic.”

Jim swallowed, caught in the black magnets of Spock’s eyes. But he couldn't contain himself now, and when he started to cry again, Spock sat up and drew Jim’s head gently down into his lap, stroking his hair with one hand and with the other rubbing firmly against the aching muscles of Jim’s back.

“Sleep now,” he murmured, “I will keep watch.”

Jim curled up tight, letting himself cry, sinking into the comfort of Spock’s touch. The darkness of sleep closed slowly around him until he was lost in the unsettled landscape of his dreams.

—-

After two weeks, the food was almost gone. They were down to one bite each per day, and only two protein packs were left.

Jim and Spock lay listless, taking weary turns at sleeping and keeping watch. They had given up any pretense of physical distance and almost never stopped touching, rubbing each other’s aching bodies, holding hands as one slept and the other struggled to keep awake, sitting curled against each other when their nightmares were so terrible that even their near-death exhaustion couldn’t put them back to sleep.

They were both awake at some deep, dark hour of the night when Jim slurred against Spock’s neck. “I have a thing for you. Like a crush. Do you know what that is?”

“No,” Spock said, “But I assume you are attempting to reveal romantic feelings for me.”

“Yeah.”

“I am already aware of them. You project telepathically through our skin-to-skin contact.”

“Oh.”

They lapsed back into silence for what felt like a very long time, any strength for conversation expended. Eventually Spock managed to say, “You are aware that I possess reciprocal romantic feelings for you, correct?”

“No.”

“You cannot feel it through my skin?”

“I’m not a telepath. Remember?”

“Oh. Yes.” Spock sounded confused, as if he really _couldn't_ remember whether Jim was a telepath or not. “Well, I am indeed attracted to you. I am utterly compelled by you. I wish… I wish we could have explored the possibility of what could have been between us.”

Jim pressed closer. “Me too.”

Much later, Jim lolled his head back, managing to hold it up on his neck long enough to meet Spock’s exhausted, clouded-over eyes.

“Can I kiss you?”

“Yes.”

Somewhere in the fog of his awareness Jim knew this was bizarre and wrong, that confessions like these shouldn’t be monotone, devoid of expression, punctuated with hours-long pauses. That first kisses shouldn’t be agreed upon in nearly indifferent half-consciousness. He knew that somewhere he felt aching, passionate things for Spock, but with those emotions came the need for energy, and he didn’t have any left.

Spock let his head fall toward Jim’s and for a while they just rested their foreheads together. Eventually they summoned a bit of strength and struggled to find each other’s mouths, bring them together.

The lethargic gray nothingness of Jim’s mind exploded, a technicolor bomb of emotions and sensations. He was totally frozen in their kiss, an ecstatic, blindingly bright presence in his mind, braiding and weaving into the glittering net of his nervous system.

Spock’s hand shot up and stumbling fingers pressed painfully into three points on Jim’s face, and the mind-storm calmed somewhat, the colors deepening, disparate emotions coalescing into one simple feeling, something Jim couldn’t quite name, not yet.

Spock broke away from him gasping, and Jim reeled as the explosion dimmed quite suddenly, although he still wasn’t alone in his head. He reached instinctively for Spock and Spock grabbed him, clumsily pulling him over to straddle his lap.

“ _Jim_ ,” he breathed. To Jim’s surprise, Spock was crying, tears on his dirty face and making his dull, wasted eyes shine. He hadn’t even known that Vulcans _could_ cry.

“What happened?” Jim sobbed, realizing belatedly that he was crying too.

“I am sorry, so– so sorry, I did not intend– it was not my doing, I had no control—”

“Over _what_?” Jim said, trying to make sense of Spock’s jumbled apology.

Spock opened and closed his mouth, struggling to find words amid the confusion of whatever had just happened, not to mention their still-starving disorientation.

“We… This is… This is a Vulcan bond. It appears to have… formed spontaneously when we… kissed.”

Jim squinted, head pounding. “I don’t know what that means. Spock—”

He was shaking now, chest heaving. It was like there were too many thoughts and emotions in his head, stuff that felt foreign, not his own. Spock reached out and grabbed his face.

“I can feel your fear and confusion,” he whispered, as if to himself. He took a deep breath, summoning his strength. “It is the Vulcan equivalent of a marriage. We form telepathic connections so that we can experience our spouse’s thoughts and feelings, their mental experience.”

Jim swayed dangerously to the side and Spock caught him, taking the opportunity to manhandle him onto the ground, arranging them both on their sides with their chests pressed together and legs tangled.

“Are you saying we’re like… brain married?” Jim said, trying to piece it together.

“Yes, exactly. We are _telsu_ , bonded. _Adun t’nash-veh_.”

“ _Huh?_ ” Jim was crying again, totally overwhelmed. Spock stroked his head.

“My husband. It means ‘my husband.’”

Jim curled against Spock, pressing his face into his chest. “That’s insane.”

The sound Spock made was very nearly a laugh. “Yes. It is. But you are exhausted and approaching unconsciousness. You should sleep now.”

He seemed almost... pleased that he could read Jim’s mind. Jim felt a sudden sensation of being cradled in both body and mind, a soothing relief that was the most safe he had felt since the night of the riot. He needed to _think_ , to sort this all out, try to make sense of it, but for now the tug of sleep was too powerful. He dipped down into his newly crowded mind. It was such a warm place now, the most secret of hiding places.

 _Sleep_ said Spock’s voice in his head, and Jim did.

—-

The bizarre spontaneous bond had seemed to give Spock a temporary surge of energy, but it was gone by the time Jim woke up. Spock was leaning heavily against the cliff face, skin grey and eyes sunken. Jim dragged himself up. He could feel Spock’s exhaustion inside his own body.

“You’ve gotta sleep,” he rasped. Spock shook his head weakly.

“I must… explain. You know nothing of Vulcan bonds. You did not consent and I must provide you with more information so that you can make an informed decision. Bonds _can_ be broken.”

Jim barely understood a word of what Spock was saying, but some inexplicable part of himself panicked at the idea of losing this link to Spock. He didn’t even understand it but he somehow knew that he couldn’t endure losing it.

Spock clearly felt his panic and raised a limp hand to his face before he dropped it, no strength to keep it up. “But they do not have to be,” he reassured. “Still, you require more knowledge of bonding and what has formed between us.”

Jim shook his head. “Spock, it doesn’t matter. We’re going to die. You know that, right?”

It was the first time either of them had said it aloud, but Jim apparently couldn’t hide his thoughts from Spock anymore, so he saw no need for anything but stark honesty.

Spock stared at him sadly for a moment before nodding. “Yes.”

“You’re right, I don’t understand this thing between us, but I’m glad it happened. I’m glad I get to be inside you like this before it ends.”

“As am I,” Spock whispered. “This is the greatest form of Vulcan intimacy. I am gratified I was able to experience it. Especially with you.”

Jim tried to smile but all he managed was a twitch of his mouth. “You gotta sleep now, ok?”

Spock nodded, apparently too exhausted to argue. He slipped down and put his head in Jim’s lap. They had slept and kept watch in this position many times, but it was different now with this bond thing. There was an electric contentment in their touch, a feedback loop between them.

Spock sighed, settling deep into Jim’s hold. Jim drifted in the odd new sensations that were mercifully keeping his thoughts away from their present situation. He drifted. It wasn’t safe, but he had forgotten that. He drifted.

—-

Most of the animals in the colony were dead—even the birds and the bugs. Anything that ate the grain had been poisoned, a miniature zoological extinction playing out simultaneously with the human extermination.

So Jim was surprised one night to hear a rustling near the edge of their hiding spot, distinctly animalistic. He was on watch and squinted hard into the darkness, keeping still.

Sure enough, after a few minutes a little rodent—Jim didn’t know the species—came scuffling along the perimeter of the dead grain. Even though he knew he was starving, Jim was still surprised by the speed with which he grabbed a rock from the ground near him and threw it at the animal, killing it instantly.

After a moment of shock, Jim scrambled up and grabbed the warm carcass, clutching it to his chest as if another animal might steal it, despite the fact that they were all dead. He brought it back to where Spock was curled shivering on the ground in restless sleep and sat slowly down next to him, fixated by the lolling tongue of the dead animal in his hands.

Jim was a back-country hick and he knew how to skin an animal, although it was hard without any good tools. He had a dull fork from the cafeteria in the bottom of his backpack and he retrieved it, clumsily removing as much of the fur and skin and he could. When he was satisfied that he had a handful of mostly edible meat, he woke Spock.

Spock sat up, rubbing his eyes. His movements had gotten distressingly slow in the past few days, and Jim knew his body was beginning the process of shutting down. When Spock saw the bleeding carcass he squinted and then looked up Jim, a ripple of disturbed confusion running down the bond.

”What is that?”

”I don’t know. Pretty sure it was some kind of rodent.”

Spock was still looking warily between Jim and the bloody mass of flesh. “What… did you do to it?”

”I killed it and then I skinned it. So we can eat it, Spock.”

Spock’s horror flashed in Jim’s head. “Vulcans do not consume flesh! It is barbaric.”

Jim reached out and cupped Spock’s cheek, forgetting that he was covered in blood. His hand left a gruesome smear on Spock’s skin but Spock didn’t move away.

“We don’t have a choice. We’ve got a couple days left at most. Your body _needs_ this, Spock. It needs the protein and the fat to keep going. And I need you to keep going, ok? Please.”

“Can we not at least cook it?”

“With what?” Jim said gently. The decline of Spock’s razor-sharp intellect was especially disturbing. “Even if we could make a fire, the smoke would be too much of a risk.”

Spock nodded vaguely and Jim could feel his acceptance, but it was still shrouded in disgust and revulsion. He shifted up against the cliff wall and held out his arm. “Come here. I’ll feed it to you.”

Spock did as he was told despite his internal hesitation. He let Jim maneuver him until he was draped across Jim’s lap, cradled against him like a child. His bloody cheek against Jim’s shoulder was frighteningly cold.

“You are also going to eat, correct?”

“Yeah, we’ll split it.” He tore off a very small bite of the meat and put it in his mouth. He hadn’t expected it to taste like much of anything; sure, raw meat was disgusting, but his level of starvation would probably cancel that out. But instead of a tasteless source of nourishment, the meat was like manna on his tongue. He whimpered, pulling Spock closer to him and thoughtlessly ripping another bite off the animal with his teeth. Spock stared up at him, his emotions muted now to exhausted curiosity.

Jim tore a third piece off and held it up to Spock’s mouth. He could see Spock’s stomach heave and his lips closed tightly, distress flaring again in the bond.

“It’s ok,” Jim whispered. “It’s actually really good. Go ahead.”

Spock slowly opened his mouth and let Jim push inside, making sure the meat was too far in for Spock to easily spit it out before removing his fingers. He used his thumb to hold Spock's’ mouth closed, rubbing it against the dry, cracked skin.

Spock's eyelids fluttered. Jim could feel him experience a similar rush of euphoria which washed into Jim’s brain like a wave. With a little whine he sat up, grabbing for the meat and trying to bring the whole thing to his mouth.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Jim said, holding it out of his reach, “You gotta go slow. You can’t get sick—we need this to stay _in_ your belly. Lie back.”

Obediently, if reluctantly, Spock settled back against Jim. He opened his mouth wide and eager when Jim brought the next bite to it, leaving more smears of blood on his face. Jim fed them in slow, alternating bites, forcing both himself and Spock not to rush. The pleasure of it was almost obscene, but when the meager helping was gone the pleasure crashed into dread.

Tears started rolling down Spock’s face—he wasn’t guilty, Jim could feel, just desperate for more. Jim’s own howling hunger surged up to meet Spock’s and they folded in on each other, exhausted. The tremendous effort he had just exerted started catching up with Jim, and he slipped into sleep so quickly he didn’t even remember lying down.

No more animals came. The protein packs were gone. Jim had bought them a few days, but now they were out of time. All they had was the water in the stream and the buzzing connection between their brains. And as magical as the bond felt, it wasn’t enough to keep them alive.

—-

Jim was awoken by a drop of water on his face. He was curled in Spock’s lap, head lead-heavy, and certainly couldn’t be bothered to move for something as insignificant as dripping water. But it kept happening, the irritation just enough to keep Jim from going back to sleep. When some got in his mouth, bringing with it an odd, metallic taste, Jim finally opened his eyes in frustration.

He looked up and saw, hanging over the edge of the little cliff not so far above them, a human arm. Blood was dripping down and off the lifeless hand, straight into his face.

Jim jumped up and away from the wall in revulsion. “Spock!” he whispered, but Spock was already waking, probably stirred by the sudden spike of fear that had reverberated through Jim’s brain into his own.

Spock looked weak and disoriented but followed the shaking finger Jim lifted, looking up and taking in the corpse with a quickening of breath. Jim felt his internal struggle to focus, to find reason through his clouded senses.

“Back against the rock!” Spock hissed when he had regained awareness, dragging himself to his feet and beckoning Jim back. He hesitated, staring up at the blood running red down the cliff face.

“Come!” Spock insisted, grabbing Jim’s arm and pulling him firmly but gently to him. They shuffled to the side slightly, away from the trail of blood.

Spock’s voice was suddenly in Jim’s head, not a soft whisper of “sleep,” but loud, loud words burrowing into him. _Someone has found their way to our location and, given the fact that they are dead, have likely been followed. We are safest here where we cannot be seen from above, but we must move. This site is no longer safe._

Jim restrained a whimper at the uncomfortable sensation of Spock’s telepathic voice, echoing around his skull like a bullhorn, but managed to nod.

For a few minutes they huddled in silence against the rough rock, trying to form a plan on the current between their minds, but they were still so clumsy with the bond that they weren’t getting far.

They were interrupted by a low moan that didn't come from either of them, and Jim’s eyes, which had been screwed tight trying to fight the bond into submission, snapped open. He instinctively threw his arm out across Spock’s chest, as if he could protect him with one fragile, emaciated limb.

After a few more moments of breathless silence, they heard the moan again, faint and weak. It was coming from above them.

 _He’s alive!_ Jim tried to say through the bond. In their shared telepathic landscape his words sounded choppy and staticky, but they got through. Spock nodded and Jim went on pushing his thoughts in. _One of us has to go talk to him. He might know what’s going on, have information._

 _It is not safe._ Spock’s voice was clear but too loud, shaking Jim’s bones like the bass was turned up too high.

“What choice do we have?” Jim hissed, accidently saying it out loud. He switched back to the bond with difficulty. _If he knows _anything_ that could help us, it might be our only chance!_

Spock stared at him for a moment but finally nodded. Jim nodded back, summoning his courage. _I’ll go, you stay._

_Jim, I would prefer if you stayed—_

_No! I’m going._ Jim tried to come up with a logical reason why he should go instead of Spock, but they both knew he just didn’t want to put Spock in danger. So he leaned over and kissed Spock on the mouth before turning away.

“Wait,” Spock said out loud, and shimmied out of the letterman jacket. “You need to keep warm for strength,” he said, putting it around Jim’s shoulders and zipping him into it. There wasn’t much actual logic to the offering, and Jim suspected it was nothing more than Spock desperately trying to satisfy his urge to protect Jim by any means necessary. Jim mustered a small smile and nodded, squeezing Spock’s hand before he slipped away into the grain.

He hurried along the cliff face until he came to a slope leading up, scaling it as fast as he could, which was not very fast. But he was aware that the person could die any second, so he forced his hungry-clumsy body forward.

When he finally crested the cliff he fell to his knees and couldn’t get back up again, so he kept going at a crawl until he reached the body.

It was a man, lying on his back and staring glassy-eyed at the trees overhead. The source of the blood was a gunshot low on on his arm, and Jim could see another in his chest that had just missed his heart. It was certainly enough to kill him, but not quickly. Jim could see his chest moving weakly up and down.

Jim staggered to his feet and approached carefully, hands up. The man clearly didn’t have the strength to jump in surprise, but his eyes widened and his breathing picked up.

“Hey,” Jim said, but the man started rasping desperately before he could go on.

“Get out of here! They’re going to find you, you’re going to die, you have to _run_!”

Jim looked over his shoulder and all around, but they seemed to be alone.

“Who?”

“Kodos’s guards! No one was supposed to escape the massacre, I– I made it out, but they’re coming for me—”

“What massacre?” Jim asked sharply, cold panic running through him.

The man’s eyelashes fluttered, voice slurring. Jim realized he was about to watch a man die right in front of him. “4,000 people… they killed... 4,000 people... We weren’t… pure enough.... good enough… you have to _run_.”

Jim could only watch in horror as the man’s breathing slowed, voice trailing off. He was so caught up in watching a life slip away and in trying to piece together the scrambled warnings that he was totally unprepared for being snatched suddenly from behind, wrenched hard into the air and over someone’s shoulder.

He kicked and screamed instinctively, but his captor held tight, chuckling. Ringing shocks of alarm were pinging around Jim’s brain, Spock probably having heard the commotion and surmised what was happening. Too distracted and afraid to focus on his underdeveloped telepathic ability, Jim could only project raw screams of _CAPTURED RUN DANGER RUN RUN RUN_ through the throbbing bond.

Jim tried to look around, take stock of where he was, but all he could see was a blur of trees. Then quite suddenly his captor swung him hard into the trunk of one of those trees, head colliding with a gruesome thunk and a rush of Spock’s distress before he blacked out completely.

—-

Jim woke up, nauseated and head pounding, on a cold floor. When he was able to open his eyes and look up, he found himself in a colorless office, lying on his side near a long folding table. Several candles on tall standing votives were scattered around the room for light, necessitated by the heavy drapes covering every window, as if someone was trying to keep the outside world totally separate from this odd little room.

A few men were seated around the table, eating what looked like warm beef stew, steam rising into the dull air. Jim’s stomach clenched; the smell of the food made him sick with hunger. One chair was turned in his direction, its occupant leaning casually over him. As his vision stabilized he took the man in: dark ginger hair, a beard and pointed mustache, a sad expression on his face.

“Hello,” the man said. His voice was soft in a way that somehow managed to be deeply unsettling. “James, isn’t it?”

Jim’s head pounded and swam, each thought frayed at the end and hard to connect to the next. “Y- yeah.”

The man nodded. “It’s very nice to meet you, James. You were lost in the woods but my guards managed to rescue you. I’m so relieved that you’re safe.”

Jim blinked, trying to imagine who this man might be, why he believed Jim had been lost and not that he had run away.

“How are you feeling?” The man asked quietly.

“M’head hurts.”

“Yes, I imagine it does. You fell and took quite a blow.”

No, that wasn’t right. A guard had smashed his head into a tree. He opened his mouth to explain this to the man, but then something snagged in Jim’s sluggish awareness.

 _His_ guards? The man had said the guards were _his_. And then suddenly, realization. The men sitting around the table were guards. The guards who had seized him in the forest, the very guards he and Spock had been so desperately evading.

“You're... you're Governor Kodos.”

The man smiled slightly. “I am, James. You’re safe now. You’re with me.”

Fear clenched Jim’s empty stomach and he was suddenly forced to lurch up on his elbows and retch, but his belly was so empty that nothing came up. He gagged, tears coming to his eyes, clutching his throat with one hand.

“Oh, dear,” Kodos said. “It’s painful to see you ill, James. You must be so hungry. How unfortunate that you were... _lost_ outside the colony.” Jim realized that Kodos knew perfectly well Jim had not been lost at all. “And I understand that you weren’t alone—I believe you were with a Vulcan boy named Spock? Why don’t you tell us where he is so that we can rescue him as well?”

Spock’s name on the governor’s tongue was one of the most terrifying things Jim had ever heard. He retched again, sobbing as the spasms seized and released his body in a punishing rhythm.

“Oh, James, how unpleasant. Would you like some stew?”

Jim _desperately_ wanted to say yes, was truthfully willing to eat whatever horrifying scrap was put in front of him, but even with his brain starved and battered, his instincts were clear.

“I don’t want anything from you,” he rasped.

Kodos’s face creased in gentle confusion. “Why, dear boy? I only want to help you and your friend—I believe you and he were rather… close, if you understand my meaning? I want to make sure he’s safe as well. It’s my job to take care of my colonists, and you must know that I take that responsibility very seriously.”

Jim managed a disgusted laugh. “Take care of us? I know what you did. I know about the massacre.”

All at once, the oily paternalism fell away from Kodos’s face and was replaced with a cold, steely expressionlessness that chilled Jim to his core. But his voice stayed horribly, discordantly gentle.

“That is very unfortunate.”

Kodos stood slowly and lowered himself to floor beside Jim, leaning far too close toward him.

“My dear child, your life is utterly meaningless. You are a starving mongrel like all the others. On your own, you're of no value to me. Disobedient, you are an active liability. Do you know that only a handful of people can claim that they’ve seen my face? But you have. You understand, of course, that if you don't cooperate I can’t let you live.”

Jim’s breathing shallowed and sharpened, his mind too young and broken to process how it felt to be crumpled at the feet of a murderer.

“However,” Kodos said, tilting his head slightly. “I’m a generous man. I’m willing to give you one more chance to... make the cut, if you will. That Vulcan you got your perverted little hands on is the Terran Ambassador’s son, as I’m sure you know. He’ll make quite a bargaining chip when the Federation finally realizes what’s happening here. He's worth more than you, James, and I need him. Much more than _you_ ever will. Tell me where Spock is and we can put all of this behind us. You’ll forget what you know, and you and I can have a fresh start.”

“I’m not telling you anything,” Jim whispered, shaking now with whimpering sobs.

Kodos stared him down with his dark, hollow eyes. “It _hurts_ to be less valuable than him, doesn’t it? He’s a half-breed, a genetic deformity and _still_ , you’re nothing compared to him.”

Jim stayed silent, shaking against the cold floor.

“Where is he, James?”

When Jim didn’t answer, Kodos nodded. “Very well.” He turned to the guards. “Seize him.”

Before Jim could even think to struggle, two huge men were on either side of him, dragging him up by his arms and holding him limp between them. He pulled against their hold but they would have been too strong for him to fight even at his normal weight, let alone this far into starvation.

Kodos was sitting back down at the table, expression almost bored. “Bring the telepath. Once she’s gotten the location of the Vulcan, dispose of the boy.”

Jim’s body went rigid as another guard left the room. Was Kodos going to have a telepath dig around in his mind to find where Spock was hiding? But with a tentative surge of relief, Jim realized that he didn’t even know the answer: Spock had said he was going to move to a safer location.

But then it hit him. The bond. The bond was a direct link back to Spock. If a telepath could access it, they could easily get around Jim’s nearly nonexistent telepathic control and force the details out of Spock himself. Panic started sizzling under his skin, buzzing in his bones.

The guard returned with a tiny Aenar woman. Her face was sunken and scared, and Jim wondered distantly if she had been captured or if she had agreed to help Kodos in exchange for food, or for her life.

The guards pushed him back to the floor and let go, but loomed on either side of him, obviously close enough to grab him if he tried to run. The Aenar woman was shoved down across from him and she shivered as she tried to settle on the protruding bones of her legs.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and raised a trembling hand to Jim’s face.

Jim was shaking so hard now that his teeth were clattering. He had to do something, had to _think_ , he had no time—

 _Bonds_ can _be broken._

The memory of Spock telling him this, as well as the horrified fear it had caused him, came rushing in. There was no other choice.

Across the distance between them, Jim pushed roughly into Spock’s mind. He felt Spock’s surprise and discomfort, and then a growing pulse of horrified fear.

Jim tore through the cherished landscape of Spock’s brain. He found every filament that was vibrating with _JIM_ and tangled them all into a grotesque neural bouquet that he shoved into the very heart of their bond, that place in Spock’s head where he felt most at home.

 _NO_ Spock’s voice screamed in his mind. _NO JIM NO ADUN NO NO NO_

But Jim imaged a wall going up around that place in Spock’s mind; he built bricks from his own devotion and mortar from his own blood and he hid himself too deep for Spock to find. He felt something shatter in his own brain, snapping and breaking and it was _painful_ , so much unbearable, unspeakable pain.

Jim gasped for breath, curling in on himself, and the Aenar, who had been just dipping into his mind when the bond broke, started screaming. She screamed and screamed and screamed and Kodos charged her, grabbing her by the arms and yanking her up.

“What is it? Where is he? Stop it!”

But it seemed she couldn’t stop, and as the pain became too much for Jim to take and he started to slip out of consciousness, all he could hear was the raw, ringing song of her screams. His brain wailed in time, a dreadful harmony, but suddenly one last scrap of survival instinct bullied its way to the front of his mind.

The guards were distracted. _Everyone_ was distracted, focused on the hysterical Aenar and Kodos’s shouting.

Although it felt like his entire body was on fire from the telepathic pain, Jim dragged himself up and ran blindly for the door. He heard someone shout behind him and the sound of several people scrambling, and he searched his howling brain for any useful idea. His wobbling vision focused on one of the candle votives and he grabbed it, swinging around to fling it at the guards who were now only feet from him.

They dodged, and Jim took the opportunity of their confusion to grab two more votives and throw them as well. One of them got tangled in the heavy drape covering the nearest window, and it went up in flames much more quickly than Jim would have expected. As the pain in his brain spiraled higher and higher, he seized the burning cloth and ripped it down, throwing it into the path of the guards and blocking their exit. He turned away without a second look, fleeing blindly down a few hallways until one of the doors he desperately shoved finally led outside.

The smell of smoke and the sound of screams followed him as he ran. He had no idea where he was, blind to anything around him and increasingly unaware of anything but the excoriated agony in his brain. All he knew what that he had to get as far away as he could.

He didn’t know how much distance he managed to cover; eventually the pain was simply too much and he fell, sure he was being dragged down into hell. The screams in his ears were quite possibly his own, and they were the last thing he heard before the black took him under completely.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter note: Amanda survives the destruction of Vulcan. It's not a major plot point, I simply reject any other reality.

**2247**

Spock woke up screaming.

He didn’t know where he was or why he was so panicked, but he knew in a primal part of himself that something was very, very wrong.

Almost instantly several people were crowding him, touching him, assaulting his unshielded mind with their thoughts and emotions. Spock kept screaming and pushed blindly against the unwanted hands, but then something hissed against his neck and he instantly felt his strength and mobility drain away. Someone caught him and lowered his limp body back against the surface of the bed he was apparently lying in.

Now unable to do much more than observe his surroundings visually, Spock looked at the people crowded around him and identified them as medical professionals. One of them reached out to touch his arm but he managed to jerk away even in his sedated state, and she withdrew her hand.

“It’s alright, Spock. You’re safe. You’re on the starship _Narbonne_. You’re not on Tarsus IV anymore. You were rescued.”

Not on Tarsus? But how? The last thing Spock remembered was…

Spock searched his mind, finding it jumbled and confused. What _was_ the last thing he remembered? It was something terrible, something _wrong_ …

The bond! Broken, destroyed, he had broken it to save Spock and now he was gone—

“Where is he?” Spock shouted, and the three nurses around him jumped.

“Who, Spock?” One of them asked.

“I– I...”

With horror, Spock realized he couldn’t remember his name. The boy who had been his bondmate. He couldn’t even remember his face. When he broke the bond, the boy had taken most of Spock’s memories of him too.

Spock dug through his mind, desperate for any scrap of identifying memory. He knew there was something about his bondmate’s eyes that had deeply affected him, but what? There was nothing, nothing—

His bonding center was tangle of neurological damage, mangled and ruined by an inexperienced psi-null boy trying to save Spock’s life. _That_ memory suddenly surfaced, the last thing Spock remembered before waking up here. Those last moments when the boy had been in terrible danger, when he had realized their bond was a link back to Spock’s location. Spock had known in an instant what he was going to do and he had tried to stop him, screamed in his mind to stop him, but the boy had torn and rent the bond despite Spock’s pain, despite his own.

Spock only realized he was screaming again when he felt another pinch against his neck.

“No!” he shouted at the nurses, “You must find him! You do not understand, he could be dead—Kodos took him—”

But as the nurses exchanged uncertain glances, unconsciousness was taking Spock under. He growled in frustration but he was paralyzed, disoriented, and then, against his will, asleep.

—-

Jim woke up all at once. He didn’t struggle rising up from dreams, he didn’t make a sound, he was just… awake. Alive.

He blinked up at a clean white ceiling, slowly becoming aware of a gentle beeping somewhere to his left. He rolled his head toward the noise, finding a medical monitor connected to his bed.

“Jim?”

Another roll of his head revealed an older woman who appeared to be doctor standing over him. She smiled.

“Oh good, you're awake. I’m doctor Leong. You’re on the starship _Galaxy_ , and you’re safe. Does that make any sense at all?”

“Uh, not really.” Jim’s voice was scratchy and rough.

Doctor Leong smiled and took a seat at the side of his bed.

“Yeah, I guess it wouldn’t, would it? Well how about we try this: what’s the last thing you remember?”

_fire screaming pain pain pain spock_

Jim gasped as everything came rushing back, including awareness of the _unbearable_ pain in his head. Kodos had almost killed him, he was on the brink of death anyway, he had lost Spock, oh god, he had _lost Spock_ —

He tried to sit up on his elbows, push upward through the pain, but Doctor Leong reached out and pushed him back down with a soothing hand.

“Hey, hey, woah, lie down. It’s ok, honey, everything’s ok now.”

“But Kodos!” Jim gasped, “He killed– he killed—”

Doctor Leong pressed her hand more firmly into his chest. “Jim, listen to me very closely, ok? Kodos is dead. They found his body. He burned to death.”

Burned to death... Had the candles Jim had knocked over started the fire that killed Kodos? He was aware, distantly, of a vague sense of guilt, but it was overshadowed by his desperate relief. Kodos was gone. He couldn’t get to him or Spock. They were safe.

“Kodos had you, didn’t he, honey?” Doctor Leong said gently. “We found you just a little ways away from his house. It was still smoldering when we got there.”

Tears had started running down Jim’s face into his pillow. “Yeah,” he whispered. Doctor Leong nodded.

“He can’t hurt you anymore, ok? We’re on our way back to Earth and Starfleet’s going to take care of you.”

“Are you Starfleet?”

“Yep.”

“W– what happened? How did you find us?”

She checked the readings on his monitor before answering, fixing him with an appraising look. “I’m going to give you the quick version and then you’re going to get some sleep. You’re on a lot of medications that are making you pretty out of it. But I’ll tell you this: Starfleet was alerted that some family members couldn’t get in touch with their relatives on Tarsus IV and when they couldn’t get any comms through either, ships were sent out to check. We didn’t get there in time, obviously.” Here she looked away, but Jim still saw the pain and guilt in her eyes. “But we saved who we could.”

Saved who they could. Did that include Spock? “I– I was hiding out with someone before I got captured,” Jim said. “I need to know if he’s ok, his name’s—”

But Doctor Leong cut him off. “We don’t have the full lists of names yet, honey. I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait. And besides, you need to rest now.”

Jim wanted to protest, but Doctor Leong patted his arm and stood up, walking out of his line of vision. He was too tired to lift his head to see where she had gone, and in that moment he realized he was indeed back on the edge of sleep, so he closed his eyes and let it take him.

He was on the _Galaxy_ for a few more days, drifting in and out of consciousness. He didn’t remember much, although he did remember that his mom commed, tears rolling down her face as she took him in over the vid screen.

“Hey, baby.”

“Hi, Mom.”

“I’m not going to be home when you get there, Jimmy. I'm all the way out in the Mutara sector. I’m so sorry.”

Jim shouldn’t have expected any less, but a round hollow of panic still bloomed in his chest. So no one would be there for him at all.

“But I talked to Frank, ok? He knows what happened and he’s going to go easy on you, I promise.”

Jim sincerely doubted that, but he didn’t say that to his mom. He was too busy having a horrible realization: he suddenly understood his mother in a way he never had before. He’d only ever seen her as a clueless mess, well-meaning—he’d never doubted that she loved him—but selfish, absent. Running from him and Sam (mostly from him).

But now, with the hole where Spock was supposed to be screaming in his mind, Jim saw things from her perspective. She too had lost her soulmate in a blaze of death. Jim still had a faint hope that Spock was alive, but his dad was never coming back. No wonder she was so chaotic, so useless.

Jim understood in blinding clarity that if he couldn’t find his way back to Spock, his mom’s unhappy existence was now a glimpse into his own future. A loveless marriage to an abusive asshole, a life spent running. No stability and no rest.

Jim got off the call with his mom when his eyes started to close. She said they’d talk soon, although he knew they wouldn’t. She told him to call her immediately if Frank didn’t behave, and Jim said he would, although he knew he wouldn’t.

He was just about asleep when his mom’s voice floated dreamlike over him. “I love you, Jimmy.”

“Love you too, Mom.”

—-

Everything was deathly quiet in the S'chn T'gai household. It had been so for seven days, five hours, and 32 minutes; since the time when Michael’s father had finally been informed of the status of the Tarsus IV colony.

Prior to the silence there had been an unusual amount of noise and activity as Sarek attempted to ascertain any intelligence regarding the colony and, by extension, Spock. Communication with Spock had been sparse for the duration of his punitive stay, but that was not unexpected as Tarsus was distant and equipped with outdated comms systems. But Sarek had become concerned when the lack of contact drew on longer than was reasonable, and then when the family’s attempts to make contact themselves met only broken channels and static.

And so began Sarek’s unrelenting effort to demand Starfleet reach their colony through whatever means necessary. Michael had almost never seen him express what one might—if one were to acknowledge the improper—identify as anxiety.

It was unusual for someone with an ambassador’s clout to have a child on Tarsus, and if other parents had been concerned it had had no impact, but once Sarek began pushing, barriers gave way until the terrible truth was revealed.

The famine and massacre were in fact discovered by a scout ship sent at Sarek’s insistence, and so Michael knew her father was responsible for every life saved. She did not point this out to him, however, lest he come to place illogical blame upon himself for not pushing harder, sooner, in time to prevent the massacre.

Starfleet rescue ships followed as soon as the scout ship reported back, and once it was confirmed that Spock had been found alive, Sarek went silent. He spoke only to Amanda and only in private, Amanda’s gasping sobs too loud in the tomb-silent house.

All of this Michael had learned pressing her ear to doorways, or jostling with Sybok for space at the upstairs vent which was a direct auditory connection to Sarek’s office. Although they were 20 and 22, some of the habits of their childhood persisted. But there was none of their typical sibling banter which Michael knew was playful, although she refused to acknowledge it. Now there was a desperation in their snooping.

Sarek and Amanda left early on the day Spock was due to arrive home, and Michael and Sybok shared a solitary breakfast at the kitchen table. Their father’s silence seemed to echo even in his absence, and they did not speak.

They eventually drifted to the foyer together without agreeing to it, standing uncomfortably on the ancient stone tile until they heard the hum of the air car. Michael’s heart began to hammer but she could not find it in herself to suppress her emotions.

The door opened and their father entered, stepping aside to hold the door for his wife and youngest son. Amanda’s arm was around Spock, tears streaming unnoticed down her face, and even Sarek was ashen and tight-jawed.

The reason for their distress was obvious. Michael was forced to control a rush of nausea at the sight of her baby brother, emaciated in his ill-fitting robes, staring hard at the ground. He had always been small for his age, with a youthful face, but he looked so outrageously, terrifyingly young in his present condition that it was almost as disturbing as his malnourishment.

Sybok surged forward and hugged him. Spock looked as if he wanted to protest but then, unexpectedly, leaned into Sybok’s touch, clutching the back of his robes with bony fingers. Sybok was clearly surprised, and tightened his hold.

“Your brother needs to rest,” Sarek chided, but there was none of the usual heat of his reactions to Sybok’s emotional displays.

Sybok stepped back and Amanda ushered Spock to his bedroom, and for the rest of the day the family drifted about like ghosts, afraid of disturbing him.

Michael could not sleep that night, despite all her attempts at meditation. After 3.7 hours, she finally gave into her impulse and snuck across the hall to Spock’s room, knocking as lightly as possible.

When she received no answer, she hoped Spock had fallen asleep, but then the door opened and his skeletal figure stood before her.

“I apologize,” Michael whispered. “Did I wake you?”

Spock shook his head and disappeared back into his room, which Michael took as invitation to follow.

Spock sat down straight-backed on his bed, black sleeping robe a shroud hanging off his protruding bones. He looked like the _tam’a_ of legend, the sorrowful ghost Sarek used to tell them about in childhood.

Michael had not cried for many years, and she did not do so now. But the urge was there, and she saw little reason to deny that fact to herself.

“I am relieved you are home, _pi’sa-kai_.”

Spock nodded.

“Is there… At this time, is there anything I can do to assist you?”

Spock shook his head again. Michael had not yet heard him speak.

She considered. Spock was right: there was, of course, nothing she could realistically do for him that would bring solace from his trauma. But the thought of simply leaving him here, awake and alone with his thoughts, was unacceptable.

Michael made up her mind and lowered herself to the floor at the side of Spock’s bed. “I am going to sit here,” she informed him. “Should you wish me to leave, please tap my shoulder or otherwise indicate your needs.”

Spock hesitated, but eventually Michael heard, to her relief, the sound of him lying back against his pillows.

Michael sat in silent vigil for 1.4 hours before the door, still slightly ajar, opened again. This time it was Sybok, and he observed the scene in Spock’s bedroom for only a few moments before he slipped silently inside, joining Michael on the floor. Michael did not know if Spock was awake to notice this or not, but she welcomed the presence of her older brother, his strong emotions rippling through the room. With him beside her, Michael let herself drift in and out of sleep.

She did not know whether or not it was a dream when, late in the night, Amanda too opened the door, peering in at the bleak tableau her children made.

—-

Jim was debriefed at Starfleet Headquarters for over a month. He spent most of it in the medical wing, hooked up to IVs full of antibiotics, nutrient replacements, and sedatives. His condition was extreme enough that daily hypos weren’t enough, so he was forced to endure the needles tucked under his skin.

The sedatives made him sleepy and disoriented, but not enough to quell thoughts of the last two months, of Kodos, and, most persistently, of Spock 

The place in his brain where the bond had been was now a howling, gaping crater. The pain of it made him tremble and was sometimes so intense that he threw up. That forced him to tell the doctors what had happened, even though he didn’t want to—for some reason he didn’t want to tell _anyone_ what had existed so briefly between him and Spock. But he was still far too malnourished to be vomiting several times a day, so eventually the truth had to come out.

The doctors tried to hide it but they were clearly alarmed, running so many brain scans that Jim eventually passed out from the strain on his already scrambled mind. When he woke up the nurses were even graver than usual. But mysteriously, nothing happened. Jim was put on a painkiller and no one mentioned the bond again, refusing to answer the few times he tried to ask about it.

Jim figured out why one week into his stay at Starfleet Medical. It was one of the first days he was starting to feel lucid—they were trying a decreased sedative dose and he was managing to stay awake for a couple hours at a stretch, although he was still fuzzy from the painkiller. He woke up sometime in the afternoon, judging by the orange light streaming through the window, to a nurse coming in to check his vitals.

“There’s a Starfleet officer here to see you,” he said. “He’s coming in now.”

Jim wasn’t surprised—he knew there was an investigation into what happened on Tarsus and obviously Starfleet would be debriefing survivors, but his heart still sank. He didn’t feel up to talking, but he was a half-starved 14-year-old stuck on his back on a hospital bed, so really, anyone could make him do whatever they wanted.

He was surprised to see an older man in Admiral’s stripes sit down at the side of his bed—he hadn’t been expecting someone so highly ranked. Jim stared up at him and the man looked uneasily back, although he tried for a (mostly unsuccessful) smile.

“Hi, Jim. I’m Admiral Baker.” His arm jerked as if he had almost offered his hand to shake but thought better of it. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit.”

Admiral Baker chuckled awkwardly. “Well, now—let’s not use language like that, shall we?”

Jim blinked at him in silence.

“Well,” Admiral Baker said again, clearing his throat. “I’m here to talk about what happened to you on Tarsus IV, ok? We don’t need to go into a lot of details today since you’re still so… tired… but we need to get a few things straight.”

When Jim still didn’t say anything, Admiral Baker nervously looked away, turning on his PADD to take notes.

“So the most important thing here, Jim, is that you say you saw Kodos. Can you tell me more about that?”

“Uh, I got captured by some of his guards and they brought me back to his house. He tried to convince me to give away the location of my, um, my friend I was hiding with, but I wouldn’t do it. He brought in an Aenar woman to read my mind and told the guards to kill me when she was done, but she, um, got distracted and I ran. I knocked over some candles and got far enough ahead of the guards to get away. I passed out after that.”

Admiral Baker nodded, taking it all in. After a few moments he said, “Ok. So Jim, what I’m about to tell you is extremely important. Starfleet needs you not to tell _anyone_ that you saw Kodos. You are going to be wiped from the record, so no one but some high-ranking Starfleet officers will even know you were on Tarsus IV.” He did the unsuccessful smile again. “And it’s kind of nice to have that privacy, huh?”

Jim stared at him in disbelief. “What– why?”

Admiral Baker looked more uncomfortable than ever, if that was possible. “Well, I hate to be the one to tell you this, Jim, but we, ah. Starfleet believes Kodos may still be alive.”

A sick sensation rolled over Jim, as if his bed had transformed into a sucking black hole and he was being pulled powerlessly into it.

“But they– they told me he was dead,” he whispered. Admiral Baker nodded sympathetically.

“I know, and that’s what the public believes. It’s what we need them to believe. We need Kodos to think it’s what _everyone_ believes. We can’t let on to Kodos that we know he’s alive, and that’s why we’re scrubbing you and everyone else who saw his face from the record. There were only ten of you, you see. And as far as anyone knows, none of you was on Tarsus at all. And we need it to stay that way, so you can’t tell anyone what you know.”

Jim let this all sink in for moment; struggling through the painkiller fog to make sense of what Baker was saying.

“My– my mom already knows. So does my stepdad.”

“Yes, that’s alright,” Baker nodded. “They’ve been contacted and instructed in discretion. It’s ok for you to talk to a therapist too, if you need to, but your mom or stepdad will have to let Starfleet know about any medical provider who’s going to know what happened. Just so we can make sure they won’t break confidentiality.”

Yeah, that was never going to happen. Mom was too far out in space to be coordinating his medical care, and Frank certainly wasn’t going to help him find a fucking therapist, and even if Jim found one himself, Frank wouldn’t go to the trouble of getting them approved by Starfleet. Jim would never have expected he might want to go to therapy, but the sudden knowledge that he wouldn’t even have the opportunity was overwhelming.

Admiral Baker took the opportunity of his silence to level him with a serious gaze.

“There’s one other very important thing we need to discuss today. The doctors told me about what happened with the Vulcan boy.”

Although the subject change set off all kinds of alarm bells, Jim’s first impulse was to correct him automatically. “Spock. His name is Spock.”

“Yes. Spock. You… Well, we need you not to contact him again. I’m sorry, Jim. It’s just too risky.”

The black-hole sucking feeling came back and in Jim’s head, the broken bond throbbed. He started breathing too hard, the beep of his heart monitor picking up speed. Admiral Baker glanced nervously at the readouts over his biobed and plowed on, as if he was trying to cram as much information as possible down Jim’s throat before the nurses came back.

“Your doctors are pretty sure you successfully broke the bond you had with him, and you told them you think you erased his memories of you. So you’re going to have to leave all that behind. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t understand,” Jim said, ashamed to hear the whimper his voice had been reduced to. The dead bond itself seemed to recoil, and the surge of pain brought one concern to the fore: “You don’t know how much it still hurts. I need… Can’t I at least get a Vulcan healer to figure out what’s going on?”

Baker took a deep breath. “I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible. Spock was the only Vulcan on Tarsus IV, and the ambassador’s son no less. You can only imagine the tension this has created, because Vulcan isn’t happy with how Starfleet handled Tarsus IV—not that we could have done anything else!” he amended quickly. It was entirely unconvincing, but at that moment Jim didn’t care about Starfleet trying to cover its ass for not launching a rescue before the massacre. He stared at Baker in increasing panic as he went on. “But relations between our governments are shaky right now, and we can’t risk a healer going back to Vulcan and telling them what… happened between you and Spock.”

“But– but what if the pain doesn’t go away?” Jim whispered.

Admiral Baker reached out and awkwardly patted his leg. “I’m sure it will, Jim, not to worry. It’s still early days.”

But the _beepbeepbeep_ of Jim’s heart had increased to a gallop, and he was suddenly aware that he was shaking so hard the bed had started to rattle.

“Now Jim—” Baker said nervously, but Jim interrupted.

“You can’t take him from me!”

Sweat was starting to bead on Baker’s forehead. “Calm down now, Jim, come on—”

“It’s not– I can’t!”

Panic suffused Baker’s face and he suddenly leaned over Jim, their faces very close. “What do you think is going to happen here?” he hissed, his voice completely altered into something hard and unforgiving. “Do you honestly think the _Ambassador_ to Vulcan is just going to let you _marry his son_? You’re a 14-year-old _child_. You don’t even know everything that’s hanging in the balance between our governments right now—this is no time for some Romeo and Romeo fantasy, do you hear me? If you go to Spock, you’re doing nothing but putting him in danger, not to mention anyone else Kodos might go after if he finds out we’re after him. You’re going to put this shit behind you and you’re going to _keep quiet_. Do you understand me?”

Jim burst into tears. Great, ugly sobs that wracked his chest and sunken belly. The heart monitor starting screeching an alarm. Admiral Baker recoiled from him, face paling at what he had just done. The tap of a nurse’s shoes started running toward them. Baker glanced at the door, anxiously licking his lips, and turned back to Jim.

“Do you give me your word, Jim?” He whispered. His voice was frantic.

But Jim couldn’t bring himself to say yes. They stared each other down, Baker unmoving and Jim continuing to sob, until the nurse came rushing in. “What happened?” he asked sharply, but Jim was incapable of answering. Admiral Baker just stood up and headed for the door. “Our conversation was difficult,” he said tonelessly. “See that he’s taken care of.”

And he was gone.

The nurse shook his head and quickly produced hypo, jabbing it into Jim’s neck. He rubbed the injection site with his thumb while Jim wept.

“It’s ok, honey. It’ll all go away soon, just let yourself sleep.”

Jim cried until the medicine rushing through him made his muscles and eyelids heavy, pulling him down, down down, all the way into the black hole.

—-

Over the next three months, Spock was quiet, well-behaved. He returned to school, he resumed achieving top marks. He followed the diet plan his doctor laid out for him, intended to heal his body and prevent disordered eating. As far as his family knew, it was successful, but Michael had her doubts. She was uniquely qualified to recognize a too-human Vulcan overcompensating for uncontrolled emotions.

Her skepticism grew as she began to notice Spock leaving his bedroom at night, creeping downstairs and not returning for hours. Michael’s bedroom was closest to his, and although he was obviously trying to be silent, he still attracted his sister’s attention. When the frequency of these excursions increased to an average of once every other day, Michael decided it was illogical not to follow Spock in case he was engaging in some unhealthy behavior.

One night, she waited 10.7 minutes after she heard Spock slip downstairs, then went after him. He was not in the house nor, she determined after a thorough search, anywhere on their large grounds. But she finally located him just outside the high brick wall that ringed their mother’s back garden, kneeling in the sand.

Michael had managed to come upon him without his notice and she slowed her pace, keeping silent in the shadows. Spock was crouched over a mess in the sand that Michael could not identify, crying quietly, hands raised to his face. Michael could not see the source of his distress until suddenly he shifted, revealing more of himself and the ghastly reality of his activity.

He was hunched over what appeared to be a rudimentary animal trap, cobbled together from scrap metal. In jaws of the trap was a dead chkariya, beady eyes bulging and green tongue lolling. To Michael’s horror, half of the animal had been torn away, and Spock was now clutching it in his hands, pressing it to his mouth.

She could not stop herself from stepping back in revulsion, but Spock did not hear her over the sound of his own gasping sobs as he devoured the animal raw.

Michael backed slowly away until she could no longer see Spock, and then she rushed back toward the house, breaking into a run when she was out of Spock’s hearing. She intended to go directly to her father but was forced to detour into the downstairs bathroom to vomit.

It was one thing to break the Vulcan tradition of vegetarianism; it was another entirely to kill an animal and then eat it while its blood was still pumping. The image of Spock’s green-smeared face surged in Michael’s mind, and her body doubled violently as she retched again.

When she had finally regained control of her body, she left the bathroom to find Sarek waiting for her with a glass of water, a faint line of concern on his brow. He had apparently heard her distress from the master bedroom.

“You are unwell, _kan t’nash-veh_ ,” he said. “Do you know the reason?”

Michael nodded miserably. “I am aware Spock has indicated that he is alright, but I can assure you he is most certainly not.”

She took the water glass with a shaking hand, keeping her mind carefully blank as she drank to avoid gagging.

“Father,” she whispered. “He has been leaving the house at night, and I followed him to ascertain his purpose. He is going to the desert outside of Mother’s back garden. He has made a trap to kill animals and is… he is eating them raw. I… came upon him doing this.”

She watched the blood drain from her father’s face, although he managed to keep his expression mostly blank.

“Is he aware you observed him?”

“No.”

Sarek looked down and breathed evenly for a few moments, clearly strengthening his control. Finally he said softly, “Are you well enough to provide more details to myself and to your mother?”

“I believe so,” Michael whispered. “Yes.”

Sarek nodded and gestured toward the stairs. “Come then. Before Spock returns. We must wake Amanda.”

—-

As soon as he was strong enough and Starfleet was convinced he would keep all their secrets, Jim was sent back to Iowa. His mom was still off-planet and Frank refused to come get him, so he was put on a personal Starfleet transport vehicle that took him back to the farm at high speed. It dropped him off at the end of the long dirt driveway before zipping away, back toward California as fast as it could go.

Jim stood watching until it was out of sight, suitcase in hand and Sam’s letterman jacket draped over his arm. Finally he had no choice but to turn toward the dilapidated farmhouse and make his slow way up the drive.

The sound of the vidscreen greeted him as he entered the house, and he found Frank sitting in the front room, slouched in one of the too-old chairs with a beer in hand.

“I’m here,” Jim said when Frank didn’t acknowledge him. He looked up briefly and grunted.

“Your mom says you almost died.”

“Yep.”

“Well, don’t think you’re getting out of chores. It’s been a bitch keeping up with the farm without you here.”

Jim felt the familiar impotent anger flare in his chest, and the pain in his head throbbed. “ _You_ sent me away in the first place.”

Frank’s eyes snapped to him and finally stayed there. “Don’t fucking start with me. You got yourself sent out there, no one else. You’ve got no one to blame for what happened to you but your own damn self.”

Usually this is where the impotent anger would evolve into the rage that made Jim yell and punch walls and kick doors. But today all he wanted to do was crumple and cry, and the thought of doing that in front of Frank was unacceptable.

“I’m going upstairs,” he mumbled, and fled toward the staircase.

“Get back here!” Frank shouted after him, and Jim froze in the hallway, too uncertain of his self-control to return to Frank’s line of sight.

“ _What?_ ”

“I don’t want you to think you’re getting special treatment just because you went through some shit, understand? You think you’re the only person who’s had it tough? You went to Tarsus to get punished, and you got punished. You got what you deserved and I don’t want to hear you complain about it. We clear?”

Hot, stupid tears were already dripping off Jim’s chin. “We’re clear,” he choked, and took the stairs up to his room two at a time.

—-

Spock awoke, as he always did, in the human-pink dawn. He rarely slept for more than three hours at one time, even after his exhausting forays into the desert to dispense with his prey. He was aware that he should be ashamed, perhaps horrified, by his actions. But when Spock consumed the chkariyas, the memory of the boy was so clear. With the tang of blood in his nostrils, Spock could almost feel the boy’s fingers opening his mouth, gently, apologetically, pushing the meat inside and closing Spock’s mouth around it, rubbing his lips with his thumb while Spock struggled to swallow.

It was one of the most visceral memories Spock had of the boy, and eating flesh made him feel so close, as if Spock might remember him if he killed just one more time. He never did though: the boy always hovered just on the edge of memory, always on the tip of Spock’s tongue.

Today Spock followed his usual routine of lying in bed and trying, uselessly, to remember anything about his lost human boy. When he achieved a weak control over the compulsive cyclone of his thoughts, he rose and bathed before slipping downstairs. He was almost always up before everyone else and he preferred it that way; truthfully most interactions grated on him and expended his limited energy.

This morning, however, both of his parents were sitting at the kitchen table looking especially grave, and Spock felt a pit of misery settle in his stomach.

“Good morning, Spock,” his father said softly. “Please sit. Your mother and I need to speak with you.”

They had undoubtedly discovered Spock’s chkariyas or some other hidden symptom of his troubled existence, and perhaps Spock should have been upset, but he could only summon a vague apathy. Something unpleasant would come of this regardless, and there was nothing he could do to change that.

He sat, not looking at his parents. There was a cup of tea before him and he picked it up to take a sip—tea was one of the only things he currently enjoyed consuming and which did not make panic swirl within him. His father began speaking in a low, even voice.

“Michael has informed us that you are leaving your bed at night. She was concerned and wished to determine the reason. She discovered you in the desert last night, engaged in a very disturbing activity.”

Spock prepared to quash his anger toward Michael, but none came. She was worried for him. She had cause to be.

“Sweetheart,” his mother said gently. “Are you really trapping chkariyas and... and eating them raw?”

Spock finally looked up at her, finding her eyes helpless. He saw no reason to lie.

“Yes.”

Amanda closed her eyes.

“For what reason?” Sarek’s voice was level. So level it grated on Spock. He allowed himself an exaggerated shrug, almost hoping it would anger Sarek.

“Perhaps because I survived extreme trauma and I am not actually recovered. Did you honestly believe that I was?”

“You indicated that you were stable,” his father said, “and Vulcans do not lie.”

“And yet I _did_ lie!” Spock shouted as his apathy suddenly dissolved and he found himself unable to keep his churning anger to himself. The wild changeability of his emotions was unbalancing. His mother flinched but his father did not react. “I do not know how to speak of this to you! How can you possibly understand? What good will it do for you to know that I ate raw flesh to survive and that I cannot stop thinking of it? You do not feed me enough, there is never enough _food_ , I am never satiated!”

“Spock,” his mother whispered, “that’s not true. The doctor knows what you need, baby, and you’re getting enough food, I promise.”

“No!” Spock jumped up from the table, knocking over his chair. “There will never be enough! He said I needed flesh, my body needed the protein and the strength—”

“To whom do you refer?” His father interjected sharply.

“My bondmate!” Spock screamed. He was torn totally from his control now, all efforts to repress and hide his emotions wasted. “I was _bonded_ on Tarsus IV! I fell in love with a human boy in my class, and I kissed him, and a bond formed spontaneously between us, and then he broke it to save me, and I think he _died_! He fed me flesh, and I would have starved without it, and it makes me feel close to him, I just want to be close to him! There, are you _happy_? Are you _happy_ to know the extent of this nightmare I am living?”

Spock’s parents stared at him in shocked silence. Spock seethed, breathing hard, refusing to break eye contact with them.

“What is this boy’s name?” Sarek asked finally. The question tangled Spock up so much that he screamed through his teeth and punched his own thighs. His mother covered her mouth with her hand.

“I do not know,” he ground out. “I cannot _remember_. When he broke the bond he took my memories of him and I cannot—” He broke off with small sob and punched his thighs again.

“Spock,” his mother said after another few moments of uncertain silence. “Honey, I don’t… I don’t think that really happened.”

Spock opened his mouth to shout how _dare_ she deny the existence of this boy who was Spock’s entire world, who was both missing from and omnipresent in his mind, when suddenly a punch of doubt knocked the air from his lungs.

It had never occurred to Spock to wonder if the boy had been real or if he had been a figment of Spock’s starving mind. But no, Spock could remember their time together before the famine—running from bullies, hiding against the cliff face, sharing secrets in the falling dusk. He could remember that. Couldn’t he?

There was reassurance in the damage to his bonding center—that was real, undeniable. Surely it could not have another cause… certainly a lack of nutrients to the brain could not produce such an effect. But a current of doubt began to worm through him.

“That is not true,” he said weakly. “It happened. He was real.”

No one answered. The kitchen was as silent as a grave.

Sarek stood gracefully, folding his hands before him. “Clearly your mother and I have not provided you sufficient care in the wake of what you experienced and for that, I apologize. Please allow us to discuss privately how we will proceed from here.”

Spock was only too glad to flee the kitchen, dashing up to his room and, giving into human weakness, slamming the door behind him.

—-

At the end of the day, Spock was summoned to Sarek’s study for another conference with his parents. He had neither left his room nor eaten all day, the tug of hunger in his belly a perverse satisfaction.

Once the three of them were seated around his father’s untouched _kal-toh_ set, Sarek began in a firm tone which seemed to anticipate resistance.

“Spock, it is clear to us that we underestimated to what extent your mind has suffered as a result of what you experienced on Tarsus IV. As your current treatment plan is evidently not effective, you are going to pursue a different path of healing.”

A ripple of concern went through Spock’s mind, but he could not find it within himself to be anxious. He would have liked to attribute this to effective logical disciplines, but he knew that was outrageously far from the truth. He was just mostly indifferent to what happened to him.

“I have spoken with the masters at Gol.” Here Spock’s head shot up in surprise. “They have agreed to host you and guide you to a more logical state of mind.”

“I will not pursue Kolinahr,” Spock said sharply, surprising himself with his own vehemence. He had begun considering Kolinahr in childhood, but now the thought of it was unacceptable. It was emotion, extreme emotion, that had drawn him to his bondmate, and he had so little left of him. He would not relinquish his love, no matter how much pain it caused him.

“We would never force you to do that,” his mother said. “The adepts there are just going to help you with meditation and mental discipline. They’re going to help you feel better about food.”

“Although I encourage you not to dismiss Kolinahr outright,” his father said softly. “The emotions you are experiencing are some of the most torturous imaginable. You deserve peace from them, _sa-fu_. You do not deserve this pain.”

“No!” Spock said, voice rising, but when Sarek opened his mouth to continue, Amanda raised her hand.

“Sarek, enough,” she said, but the way their eyes met coupled with the ensuing pause made it clear enough that they were continuing the conversation through their bond. Spock felt a pang of longing so desperate it took his breath away.

“I will go,” he said, interrupting his parents’ mental communion. “But I will not pursue Kolinahr, and the adepts may not meld with me.”

His parents blinked at him. “Melds will be effective in ascertaining—” his father began, but Spock cut him off.

“ _No_.”

Sarek’s face cleared as if in understanding. “Spock. We contacted Starfleet, and they informed us unequivocally that you were found alone. The boy you described—he is not real.”

Spock shook his head, agitation starting to bubble under his skin. “We were not together when he broke the bond. He had been captured by Kodos’s guards. He was with Kodos.”

Amanda picked up where Sarek had left off, her voice infuriatingly gentle. “None of the surviving children saw Kodos closely enough to identify him. Starfleet was very clear about that. Sometimes this happens when someone is surviving extreme trauma: the brain invents things to bring comfort. I know how hard this is to hear, I _know_ , but there was no boy, sweetheart. You were out there… all alone—”

Her voice finally cracked and she covered her mouth with her hand.

“I believe you may find, Spock,” his father said, “that you do not wish for the adepts to meld with you because they will confirm no bond was ever formed there.”

Spock shot up, unable to endure the conversation any longer.

“I will not consent to mind melds or any other invasion of my mind. Under those terms, I will go to Gol.”

He left the study without waiting for a response and returned, stomach still empty, to his room. He lay in bed, eyes screwed shut, trying and trying to see the boy’s face.

**2248**

Gol was cooler than Shi’Kahr, especially in the mornings. Spock had hated it at first; it reminded him of the freezing agony of Tarsus. But he had slowly come to enjoy what his mother might call the “coziness” of it: heavier robes, wool blankets on his bed, hot tea warming his chest from the inside.

His days moved to the rhythm of ritual. He rose at dawn with the adepts and mediated for an hour. After breakfast they walked along the plateau to perform a walking meditation, chanting as the air around them warmed slightly. Spock then spent two hours engaged in schoolwork, with a break to prepare and consume the midday meal.

The remainder of the day was spent with the priestess T’Ora, receiving individual training in logic and the processing of emotions. She was young for a _kolinahru_ , and Spock found her to be a stabilizing presence. She was calm, patient, and encouraged Spock to express himself without self-recrimination or fear of judgement. She framed Spock’s emotions as natural reactions to his experience on Tarsus IV, as natural as the body bleeding in response to a physical wound.

T’Ora led Spock in advanced cognitive practices and logic exercises, explaining them slowly, step by step. Every afternoon in T’Ora’s quiet, dimly lit study, they repeated the skills together until Spock’s mind started to respond. He began to associate the scent of T’Ora’s asenoi with peace, and his mind calmed automatically when she lit it, making the work of healing incrementally easier.

Spock had once expressed concern to T’Ora that the practices, intended for adepts and some too difficult for most Vulcans, were beyond his ability, especially as a half-human. T’Ora had blinked at him and said, “These practices are helping you. Thus they are not beyond your ability.”

Spock repeated those words when he doubted himself, and continued to do so long after he had left Gol.

Food was a frequent topic of discussion between Spock and T’Ora. She assigned Spock to help the adepts prepare every meal, mindfully completing each step with focus and attention. She sat with him when he ate, reminding him to go slowly, to be conscious of each bite.

During the day, Spock’s relationship to food began to improve. But at night, alone in his cell, he could not keep out thoughts of the boy, and the desire to flee into the desert to hunt returned. Most often Spock was able to access his newly honed skills, but there were nights when he was not.

On one such night, Spock had left the monastery without enough care to keep quiet, so desperate was he to put flesh in his mouth and bring the boy’s memory to life. He had no trap at Gol, of course, so he was forced to wait, silent and still in the cold desert night, until a chkariya crossed his path. He held a rock in his palm and when an animal scurried out, Spock’s aim was fast and sure.

He had to be methodical even in this, however, lest he reveal himself by returning to the monastery covered in blood. He ate more slowly than he had at home, savoring the pulsing blood and the way the boy’s ghost shivered so briefly into focus. He made sure to be back at the monastery many hours before dawn, leaving time to rest enough that his performance would not be noticeably affected the next day. He would wash his face and then fall into a deep, paralyzing sleep.

This night, however, Spock heard a disturbance behind him as he was kneeling over the carcass of the unfortunate chkariya. He turned, mouth full, to find T’Ora standing over him. She raised one eyebrow but did not otherwise react.

Spock turned away, swallowing frantically and blushing green to the roots of his hair. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, too embarrassed to meet T’Ora’s eyes as she came around to sit delicately in the sand before him.

“I believe we may have more work to do as regards this aspect of your trauma,” she said lightly.

Spock stared hard at the sand and T’Ora did not speak again for a time, perhaps allowing Spock to sit with his humiliation.

Finally she said, “Explain this to me.” It was not a forceful command, but rather a request to understand.

Darkness hung heavy over the plateau, and the distant call of le-matyas in the valley prevented Spock’s voice, should he choose to speak, from being the only sound in the night. T’Ora’s presence was as calm and non-judgemental as ever.

“There was a boy on Tarsus IV with whom I formed a marriage bond,” Spock said in a rush. “I fell in love with him. It was not logical, but it was so. He broke the bond to save me, and in performing that act, he stole himself from me. I cannot remember his name, or his face, or anything that could help me identify him. There is no Starfleet record of him. My parents do not believe that he was real. But he _was_. I— I believe that he was.”

It was the first time he had confessed the current of doubt that now ran within him. T’Ora waited, but when Spock did not go on, she prompted, “And the chkariyas?”

Spock finally looked up into the still circles of her eyes. “When we were very close to death, a rodent came into our hiding place. Most of the animals in the colony had eaten the rotten grain and died, but this rodent seemed to have escaped, and the boy killed it so that we could eat. I was reluctant, but we were starving, and there was no other choice. The boy fed it to me. I feel… close to him. When I consume flesh. I feel close to him.”

After a few long moments, T’Ora murmured, “I see. Will you tell me what else you remember about the boy?”

Spock swallowed. She was so calm, but not the tentative, frightened calm his parents had tried to exude. She was _truly_ calm in the face of his dysfunction.

Spock told her everything, words tumbling over each other, until the human-pink dawn rose over the plateau. T’Ora listened in silence. The carcass went unfinished, a lanka-gar eventually swooping down to steal it. Although he had forgotten to care about consuming the rest of the animal, Spock still reached up with a noise of protest as it was taken away, but T’Ora lifted a hand.

“Let it go,” she said firmly, and Spock lowered his arm.

T’Ora did not offer a response to Spock’s story other than, “I thank you for your honesty. This gives me greater insight into how I may best assist you.”

They walked back to the monastery together, T’Ora putting herself between Spock and a curious group of adepts who were coming back from morning meditation.

“Sleep,” she said at Spock’s door. “When you wake, we will prepare lunch together and resume our work.”

Spock was not sure what to feel as he settled into bed, morning light streaming through his single window. He settled on feeling nothing, a surprisingly effective moment of pure emotionlessness. He followed T’Ora’s command and slept.

—-

Out in the back field, Jim collapsed onto his ass for the third time that morning. Frank had him weeding for no real reason; it wasn’t like they had grown anything on the farm since Dad died. But Frank didn’t like the bindweed that grew in this field—it made him allergic and attracted bugs. It made Jim allergic too, and that wasn’t helping his current state.

The sense memory of weeding in the hot sun wasn’t helping either. Just as he had been on Tarsus, here Jim was pulling weeds as punishment. Things that reminded him so clearly of the colony made his brain buzz, his skin prickle. Noises became too loud, the pull of gravity too strong.

Even six months after leaving Starfleet Medical, Jim was weak and frail. Being so useless pissed him off so much it was a constant, crawling irritation under his skin. Jim was used to taking care of himself and had never liked relying on others, and even though he literally _couldn’t_ take care of himself now, the need still infuriated him. And perhaps worst of all, there was no one to do the job. Jim was totally on his own and neither his body nor his mind were holding up under the pressure.

The doctors had sent Jim home with a treatment plan that indicated how much food and rest he should be getting, markers he wasn’t even close to hitting. He was skinny and exhausted but Frank just wouldn’t let him stop. He wasn’t even supposed to be doing _gentle_ physical exercise at this point, let alone weeding whole fields by himself.

Jim flopped onto his back and stared up at the cloudless blue sky. He was wheezing, nose stuffy, but it still felt good to take a break.

He wanted to go to bed. He wanted to take one of those allergy hypos that made him sleepy and then crawl under his quilt, drifting on the medicinal fuzz until he passed out. The ache in his head would persist, but eventually he would be unconscious and wouldn’t care. _Fuck this_ , he thought.

He tramped back to the house and snuck in the kitchen door, relieved to hear the sound of Frank snoring from his spot on the living room couch.

Up in his room, he gave himself a hypo and got into bed with his PADD. Jim scanned subspace for news of Spock every day, despite his fear that his communications might be intercepted. He knew Starfleet was right, and all he had to offer Spock was pain and danger, but he so desperately needed to know—was Spock ok? What if Jim was wrong and Spock _hadn’t_ forgotten him? What if he was waiting for Jim and didn’t know why Jim had abandoned him? But Spock never showed up in newsfeeds, and searching for him on Federation channels returned only results about the medical breakthrough of his birth and generic mentions of him and his brother and sister as the Ambassador’s children.

Jim wasn't technically breaking Starfleet's prohibition on contacting Spock—he had no intention of putting him in danger by opening a line of communication. He just wanted to keep track of him, and while the brass probably wouldn't like that either, what the hell else could they do to him? They’d already sent him back to Iowa with no resources and a hundred bureaucratic hoops to jump through should he want to do something as simple as go to a doctor. Maybe if they came after him, they’d find out he wasn’t being allowed to follow his treatment plan and they’d _have_ to do something.

Jim closed his eyes and tried to sleep, praying for the medicine to take effect. The broken bond took up its familiar, chanting throb. Jim waited, waited.

—-

After Spock’s confession regarding his bondmate, T’Ora made the boy’s presence known in their studies of logic. She led Spock deep into his own mind, helped him capture the memories and sensations he had previously only been able to access through eating raw meat. They mediated on those thoughts until Spock was able to construct a shrine to the boy in a corner of his mind, tucked up against his broken bonding center. There his few, precious memories were available to him whenever he sought them.

Slowly, Spock’s need for the chkariyas fell away. Whenever he felt the urge to sneak out, to _consume_ , he retreated to that place in his mind until the desire passed. There were moments, despite her emotionlessness, when T’Ora seemed almost pleased with him.

T’Ora was well aware of Spock’s prohibition on melds, and she respected it. But the day came, as Spock had suspected it would, when some of T’Ora’s superiors called him into a meeting chamber and asked him to sit. T’Ora was there as well, although there was a tight discomfort about her that Spock was not familiar with.

Spock was quite surprised to see his parents seated among the elders. His mother’s eyes warmed as they did when she wanted to smile at him but was surrounded by too many Vulcans. His father was utterly expressionless, but Spock did not fail to notice that he looked Spock up and down, probably assessing his weight gain and searching for other signs of well-being.

“Spock,” intoned the eldest priestess, T'Jorel, as Spock sat down next to his parents. “We have noted your progress and believe your time here has been beneficial. Do you agree?”

“Yes, Osu,” Spock said. The adepts nodded. T’Ora was watching him closely.

T'Jorel continued, “You possess one attitude, however, that has hindered your recovery: your unwillingness to meld.”

Spock’s spine tightened.

T’Sai, one of the other high-ranking elders, spoke firmly into the silence.

“We understand from your father that your reluctance stems from a hallucination you experienced on Tarsus IV regarding an imagined bondmate. We wish to perform a meld to heal any brain damage caused by your starvation, and also to relieve you of these painful delusions.”

From the corner of his eye, Spock saw T’Ora shift. He resisted looking to her for reassurance—did she agree with her fellow adepts that the boy was nothing but a fantasy? That Spock should meld with the adepts and have his mind stripped of its shrine to a dead and possibly nonexistent bondmate?

“No,” Spock said. He met T’Sai’s and T'Jorel’s eyes in turn. “I am grateful for the healing you have provided me, and I will carry indefinitely what I have learned here. But I remain steadfast in my refusal to allow another into my mind.”

His declaration was met with silence. T'Jorel turned to his parents. “It is the final step of this process. He will never be truly healed if it is not completed.”

But before either Sarek or Amanda could respond, T’Ora suddenly spoke up.

“I disagree.”

All of the adepts turned to look at her, expressions unchanged but somehow darker than they had been a moment before. T’Ora was unintimidated.

“Spock has shown remarkable progress. Given his level of trauma, I did not expect him to achieve this level of logic and self-mastery at all, let alone in only six months’ time. Osu T'Jorel, you are correct—he will never be truly healed. He will always bear the emotional scar of Tarsus IV. But he is in control now, and that is sufficient. His autonomy has already been violated, so as there is no evidence of debilitating brain damage, to force a nonconsensual meld would cause him to _re_ gress, not to _pro_ gress.

“If, in the future, he wishes to face what lies in the shadows of his mind, let it be his own choice. Let what he has accomplished here be enough, for now.”

“You forget yourself, T’Ora,” T’Sai said warningly, but T’Ora only raised a sleek eyebrow at her.

“Osu, I offer my opinion as one of import, given that I have worked most closely with Spock. I believe it would be unethical to force a meld and I will not allow it without at least expressing my dissent.”

T'Jorel turned pointedly away from her and addressed Sarek and Amanda. “I ask forgiveness for Osu T’Ora. She is young and has only recently achieved Kolinahr. It is vital that Spock undergo a meld to dispel his fantasies. He must see the truth in order to completely leave this experience behind him.”

Sarek steepled his fingers, considering. Spock dared not glance gratefully at T’Ora but rather stared straight ahead, eyes focused on the sunlight coming through a high window.

“I must admit,” Sarek said finally. “I agree with Osu T’Ora that Spock will never truly leave this experience behind him. If he does not consent to a meld, I will not have one forced upon him.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Spock saw Amanda turn to her husband, and he didn’t need to look over at her to visualize the expression of love-struck respect on her face, but he did anyway. Sarek glanced at her before returning his attention to T'Jorel and T’Sai.

“Osular, you have brought Spock back from the metaphorical brink, and our gratitude is endless. But we will not be swayed on this matter.”

“Yours is an undisciplined decision,” T’Sai warned. “You sent Spock to us to become stronger in logic, and he will not thrive if you do not model strict logic yourself.”

Sarek, ever the diplomat, bowed his head respectfully. “You will forgive my disciplinary lapse, but my logic is... uncertain where my son is concerned.”

Spock could not help but look up at his father in shock, and he caught his mother smiling at both of them.

T'Jorel nodded curtly. “Then there is nothing further we can do for him. You will remove him from Gol immediately.”

She stood, T’Sai and the others following suit. She raised the ta’al. “Dif-tor heh smusma, Spock. Kevetsu Sarek. Ko-osu Amanda.”

“Sochya eh dif,” Spock and his parents responded, all raising the salute as well. The kolinharular swept out of the room, disapproval in the tap of their cloth shoes, the swish of their heavy robes.

T’Ora, however, remained. She approached Spock and bowed slightly to him, a tremendous gesture of respect from one of such high stature. Spock bowed much lower in return.

“Thank you, Osu,” he said quietly. T’Ora nodded.

“You are welcome, Spock.” She reached into the pocket of her robes and withdrew a small package, pressing it into Spock’s hands and clasping them briefly. “Be well. I wish you peace.”

She dropped his hands and slipped elegantly from the room, nodding briefly at Spock’s parents before she was gone.

—-

As Amanda went to get their air car, Sarek followed Spock to his cell and helped pack his few belongings. Spock did not open the package from T’Ora, finding he wished to do so in private. He tucked it into his bag and snapped the closures shut.

“Sa-mekh?” he said softly, knowing that if he did not initiate this conversation now, the potential for it would blow away as the dust of Gol would soon be blown from his robes, his hair, his hands.

Sarek paused and turned to his son. “Yes?”

“Do you believe me? That the boy was real?”

Sarek regarded him for a long time before answering. “I do not know, Spock. I do not know if he was real, and I cannot assure you that he was. But if, in some way, he was real to you, then I accept that. And I grieve with thee for his loss.”

They stared at each other as the chilly breeze caused shafts of failing afternoon light to shift on the floor of the cell.

Finally Spock whispered, “Thank you, Sa-mekh,” and Sarek nodded.

Their reverie was broken by Amanda honking the air car’s horn, the noise loud and ridiculous in the quiet of the monastery. Spock looked out the window and saw her waving, grinning, clearly entirely both aware of and pleased by the ruckus she was making.

Sarek’s lips twitched. He put his arm around his son and together they left the small cell, climbing into the car. Without warning, Amanda did a lap around the monastery and, despite Sarek’s scandalized, “Amanda!” started honking the horn again. She giggled and threw Spock a mischievous look over her shoulder before giving Sarek a challenging Cheshire grin until he was forced to cover his mouth with his hand to hide his smile. It was a reaction only Spock’s mother could produce, and one Spock had not seen for some time.

Amanda finally cut away from the monastery toward Shi’Kahr, and Sarek began chiding her, undermining himself entirely by curling a lock of her hair around his finger. Spock looked out the window and gave himself permission for a small, secret smile as they flew far, far away from the plateau of Kolinahr.

**2252**

Jim’s head hit the holding cell wall with a satisfying crack. What was not so satisfying was the shock of pain that followed; Jim’s chronic headaches were certainly not improved by blows to the head. Every single time he’d gotten a migraine or a headache in the last five years, he’d tried to ignore how it started where the bond used to be, pulses of agony spreading out like ripples in still water. He’d never actually succeeded.

“I can’t see how you’ll be able to stay out of jail this time, Jim. You should be prepared if you actually have to serve a sentence.”

“I don’t care.”

Jim heard a chair scrape back and in a moment Officer Bansaal appeared next to the bars of the cell. Jim lowered his aching head to make eye contact. He could definitely feel a migraine coming on.

“You know, Jim, I don’t think I believe you.”

“Oh yeah? Last time I checked you were just a small-town Iowa sheriff and not a shrink.”

Officer Bansaal’s familiar face creased into a smile. “Maybe, but I’ve had you in this cell enough goddamn times to know you a little better than most of my small-town Iowa _criminals_ , don’t you think?”

Jim huffed a sad, tired laugh and shrugged. “Guess so.”

“Wanna tell me what happened this time?”

“You arrested me—I’m pretty sure you already know.”

“Haven’t heard it from your point of view yet, though. How about I make us a pot of coffee and we talk out here? I can trust you not to escape, right? ”

Jim studied him. Apparently Officer Bansaal really did know him pretty well, because the truth was Jim liked him too much to get him in trouble. Also, he was in deep shit this time and didn’t really want to make it worse.

So a few minutes later he was in the chair by Officer Bansaal’s desk, sipping a cup of coffee.

“You hungry?” Bansaal asked. “You’re always so goddamn skinny.”

“I’m ok. Coffee’s good. Thanks.”

Officer Bansaal nodded as he sat down, and Jim hoped he couldn’t hear the growling of Jim’s stomach.

“Alright. Tell me what happened.”

“It was just a stupid fight,” Jim said. “Guy thought I was looking at him funny and I felt like pissing him off, so I told him I was. Didn’t mean to break his leg, he was just drunk and he fell at a weird angle when I punched him.”

“You weren’t even looking at him funny?”

“Nope.”

“You just wanted to fight?”

“Yep.”

Officer Bansaal sighed. “Kid, you’re only 19. You’re smart as hell. There’s still time to turn stuff around if you want to. If you’re willing to accept help.”

Jim’s head snapped toward him. “Help from _who_? You think if I’d _ever_ had help things would be like this?”

“Ok, ok,” Bansaal said, holding up his hands. “That’s fair, I know it is. But Jim, this is looking like an assault charge. You’re escalating, and if you dig this hole any deeper you’re not going to be able to claw your way out. But if anybody _could_ claw their way out, I’d put my money on you.”

Jim blew air through his nose in frustration, running his fingers through his hair. He didn’t answer, and Officer Bansaal turned away to his computer, but finally Jim muttered, “Thanks.” Officer Bansaal had the good grace not to answer, just smiled warmly when Jim looked over at him.

“You know, usually,” he said, a tease in his tone, “this kinda shit is about a girl. At least you don’t have that going for you.”

Jim laughed sadly. “I sure don’t.”

But something in his voice must have caught Officer Bansaal’s attention, because his eyebrows furrowed. “Is it about a boy?” he said evenly.

Jim very nearly lied, but he was tired and coming down from being drunk and about to be locked up, and _god_ his head hurt and he was just so _tired_.

“Yeah. And a bunch of other stuff, obviously. But yeah.”

Officer Bansaal nodded. After a few moments he said, “Well, if this guy broke your heart, he doesn’t deserve you.”

Jim closed his eyes. “It’s really the other way around.”

**2255**

There were lots of men in Jim’s life. Some, like Officer Bansaal, were pretty good. Some, like Frank, were absolute shit. But most of the men in Jim’s life were just drunk, horny, and looking to stick their dicks in a tight hole. Jim started trying to fill the emptiness in his brain with sex early on—he just missed Spock so much, and one unexpected side effect of the broken bond was that it left Jim unbearably touch-starved.

He served six months for the assault charge, and no one touched him the entire time. He kept his head down and didn’t get into any fights, but sometimes he was tempted to, just to feel the touch of a fist in his face.

So when he got out of jail, he started sleeping around even more, desperate for touch. He let guys do awful things to him, fuck him too hard and too rough in alleys and cars. He had a knack for picking up aggressive, toppy assholes—when faced with men in bars, he just couldn’t summon any confidence and ended up passively doing whatever the other guy wanted.

To compensate, he would be way too pushy with women, getting away with it a lot because he was so pretty. Drunk and angry and burning hot before he burned out, he would take a sick pleasure in being the one to wield the power, the one who could pierce and penetrate and plunder. But he was never cruel to them like the men were cruel to him; he had known how it felt to be trapped and afraid, and he never wanted to make anyone else feel that way.

The women Jim favored tended to be softer, their touches gentler. He liked the kind of woman who would give him a nice fuck he would remember in the morning, one he could feel good about. He would top her and take care of her and make her come so many times it left her screaming into his mouth. He would bring her water, laughing and flirting while she came down. Easy, sweet.

But Jim very rarely let himself have the comfort of a woman or of a gentle man. The truth was, he hated his body and its weaknesses, left over from starvation. Eating was so stressful that he was still underweight—when he ate he inhaled whatever was in front of him as if Kodos himself was about to steal it. It was humiliating and panic-inducing, so a lot of the time Jim avoided food altogether. Never putting on enough weight only made him self-conscious on top of guilty and haunted, and as much as he craved reassuring touch, his body felt totally unworthy to receive it.

So he usually stuck to the drunk assholes and their cruel touches—better than nothing and all his body deserved. Beyond making sure a given guy was down and in control of himself, Jim just laid his body bare and let them take, take, take.

Jim never stopped searching for Spock in the newsfeeds, and eventually he did start getting results: first Spock's defiant refusal to join the Vulcan Science Academy, which Jim thought was goddamn awesome. Then he started showing up for the awards he was receiving and the records he was breaking at Starfleet Academy, gushing reports of how quickly he was zooming up through the ranks and sweeping predictions of an esteemed career.

Jim couldn’t even hold down a job.

Jim was really, truly happy that Spock was ok, or at least ok enough to thrive. Breaking the bond had achieved Jim’s exact purpose: it had saved Spock and given him a chance to live. He wasn’t jealous or resentful, he was just so, so sad, so disgusted with himself.

Where Spock had risen after Tarsus, Jim had sunk, and the gulf between them only grew. With every one of Spock’s achievements, Jim became less worthy of him.

In the end, when Captain Pike appeared in the same dirty, empty bar where Jim usually picked up guys, Jim high on liquor and the sweet agony of fighting, Pike’s dare had felt like one last chance to get to Spock. Jim was _tired_ , and he missed Spock, and the pain in his head had never gone away after all. He couldn’t eat like a normal person and Kodos’s face was in his nightmares pretty much every damn time he closed his eyes.

So he went to the Academy without a passing glance back at his life in Iowa, a sick surge of hope in his chest. Maybe Spock would recognize him. Maybe, just _maybe_ , there was hope for the future they had accidently promised each other when their minds joined of their own accord, so well-suited to each other that they cleaved inexorably together. Maybe, maybe.

Jim had barely gotten off the shuttle when he saw Spock for the first time. He had hoped he would have time to prepare himself but no, there he was, striding across the courtyard in professor’s blacks.

Jim had seen him in holos, of course, but they really hadn’t done him justice. Spock had grown up slim and poised, hair still in that damned bowl cut. His face was harder, sharper, than it had been on Tarsus, and his eyes held none of the expressive warmth Jim remembered. But he was gorgeous. Perfectly, outrageously gorgeous. Jim was probably biased, though.

Spock stopped to look at something on his PADD and Jim drank him in. God, it had been 8 years and Jim could still remember so clearly how that bow mouth had felt against his own, under his thumb as he held Spock’s lips closed to help him swallow the meat that would keep him alive.

Jim moved toward him. Each step brought more detail into focus: how muscley Spock was (not skinny at all), how perfectly neat he kept his hair, how tall he was. Then suddenly Jim was close enough to hear the touch of Spock’s fingers against his screen, and he was so dizzy he was worried he might fall over.

Spock looked up at that moment and made to continue on his way. Jim was now standing in front of him and, when Spock saw him looking, he raised an eyebrow slightly. But then his eyes just glazed over Jim as if he was anyone, no one, and Spock walked away. Just like that, he walked away.

There was no maybe. There was no hope. Spock and Jim’s bond had died on Tarsus, starved and withered away. If only, if _only_ , Jim had died along with it.

**2258**

“I believe I have the right to face my accuser directly.”

Jim knew it was Spock. Of course he did, he knew who programmed the goddamn test. He had no idea why he wanted to actually come face-to-face with him; maybe it was just an absurd desire to get close, to see if, by some miracle, Spock would realize that Jim needed him. Maybe it was a sick fantasy that _this_ time, unlike the countless other times they had passed each other at the Academy, Spock would know him and would rush over and sweep him off his feet like a cheesy holo-novel. Maybe that’s what this Kobyashi Maru thing had been about all along.

“Cadet Kirk, you somehow managed to install and activate a subroutine to the programming code, thereby changing the conditions of the test.”

It was the first time Jim had really heard his voice since Tarsus. It rattled him so profoundly he was shocked he managed to respond at all. “Your point being?”

“In academic vernacular, you cheated,” Admiral Barnett said from the front of the room.

Jim so deeply did not care about anyone in the room but Spock, let alone Admiral Barnett. But he couldn’t stare at Spock’s empty fucking eyes anymore so he looked away.

“Let me ask you something, I think we all know the answer to. The test itself is a cheat, isn't it? You programmed it to be unwinnable.”

“Your argument precludes the possibility of a no-win scenario.”

Jim plastered on a fake grin and lied through this teeth. “I don't believe in no-win scenarios.”

“Then not only did you violate the rules, you also failed to understand the principle lesson.”

He was going to teach Jim a lesson, huh? Spock. The fragile boy Jim had held while he starved, whose eyes had seemed to grow bigger the more his cheeks sunk in, who Jim had reassured and bolstered. The boy he had, even to _this very moment_ , protected with his silence. “Please, enlighten me.”

“You of all people should know, Cadet Kirk. A captain cannot cheat death.”

Fear suffused Jim’s whole body, his fingers and lips starting to go numb as they did when he had a panic attack.

_“We’re going to die, Spock. You know that, right?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“You’re right, I don’t understand this thing between us, but I’m glad it happened. I’m glad I get to be inside you like this before it ends.”_

_“As am I.”_

“I of all people.”

“Your father, Lieutenant George Kirk, assumed command of his vessel before being killed in action, did he not?”

Oh, ok. It was about that. Wow, that was… incredibly, incredibly cruel. Jim was sure there were plenty of reasons why Spock had become so bitchy and inscrutable in the last 11 years, just as he himself had spent so much time as a drunken delinquent. Tarsus was a lasting scar, a lingering poison, that affected every aspect of his life, and it was no doubt the same for Spock. But at the moment Jim wasn’t feeling especially sympathetic, and couldn’t find it in himself to give Spock that leeway. “I don't think you like the fact that I beat your test.”

“Furthermore, you have failed to divine the purpose of the test.”

“Enlighten me again.”

“The purpose is to experience fear.” Spock’s voice changed. Probably no one else noticed, but Jim heard it loud and clear because had heard that tone in Spock’s voice before. _This_ Spock, he recognized. “Fear in the face of certain death. To accept that fear, and maintain control of oneself and one's crew. This is a quality expected in every Starfleet captain.”

Jim stared at him. Spock had no idea. He had _no idea_. They had hovered on the brink of death together and had only managed not to fall into the abyss because of one unlucky rodent and an impossible link between their minds.

_He has no idea._

It was a phrase Jim would repeat to himself many times over the next two days, and in fact over the next five years.

_He has no idea. No idea that he’s breaking my heart._

—-

Later, Jim would wonder how the hell he let things get so out of control. He should have kept himself in check, but he had spent so many goddamn years enduring the literal hole in his head that was Spock’s absence. Could anyone really have expected him to stay in control after everything that happened with the _Narada_?

He had suffered so hard to keep Spock safe and how did Spock repay him? Nerve pinching him, exiling him, punching him, choking him half to death? Not to mention fucking making out with Uhura on a fucking transporter PADD as if that was even remotely appropriate.

Jealousy didn’t suit Jim. Furthermore, he liked Uhura a lot. He pissed her off, he knew, and he was pretty sure she didn’t like him one bit, but he respected her. And he felt bad for hitting on her in the bar that time. He didn’t blame her for loving Spock but that didn’t stop him from hating her for having what he wanted, the jealousy stronger than poison in his veins. He wanted to scream “He’s mine!” at her like a petulant child, and then remind Spock, “You’re gay, you idiot! I was the first person you ever told! I was the first person to _accept_ you, even when I couldn’t accept myself! What the hell are you doing?”

Jim had _saved_ Spock, dammit—he had fed him and sheltered him and loved him, loved him so much he tore their brains apart. Nothing could be more painful than seeing Spock turn on him.

But no, that wasn’t quite true. It had been much more painful to watch Spock lose so much _again_ , to see him regress back to the terrified boy Jim recognized so intimately, helpless while things fell apart around him.

They were both getting too familiar with worlds dying under their feet.

Jim watched Spock huddle with his parents in sickbay, trying to come to terms with the immeasurable loss of their home, and for a moment his anger had evaporated. All he wanted to do was hold Spock like he had done so long ago, reassure him that he was loved more deeply than he could understand.

And when Spock climbed up onto his bridge, eyes glittering with curiosity, with interest in _him_ , asking to be Jim’s first officer, what was he supposed to say? No?

Maybe it would be for the best. As intense and life-altering as Jim and Spock’s bond had been, it was still a childhood love, right? Maybe living and working with Spock would allow Jim’s feelings to simmer into something platonic and manageable. Maybe Jim’s headaches would go away.

Yes, he had promised to keep out of Spock’s way. And yes, this was the opposite of that. They were on an uneven playing field—Jim knew so much about Spock and Spock didn’t know that, and thus it wasn’t fair for Jim to have authority over Spock.

But Spock asked. He asked to go with Jim, to be at his side. How was Jim supposed to refuse him?

—-

Michael and Spock tried to comm at least once a week, and had promised to do so even with Spock’s shiny new deep-space posting on the _Enterprise_. Michael got nervous if she went too long without checking on Spock, and Captain Georgiou—who knew the whole story—made accommodations.

Michael wondered if Spock had told Captain Kirk anything about Tarsus. She doubted it, given the rocky start to their relationship. In fact, she couldn’t quite figure out why Spock had agreed to serve under this man he claimed to find so infuriating. Well, she did have one suspicion.

“He’s cute.”

On her computer screen, her brother’s image raised an eyebrow. “To whom do you refer?”

“Your captain.”

“I suppose.” Yeah right, he _supposed_. That Kirk kid was hotter than the sun. “What is the purpose of your statement regarding Captain Kirk’s appearance?”

Michael grinned and Spock did that thing with his eyes that wasn’t an eyeroll.

“Michael, Captain Kirk is my superior officer, thus your less-than-subtle implication that I might find him attractive is entirely inappropriate. I am not subject to _your_ particular weakness.”

It sounded mean but his lip had quirked on that last sentence. Michael knew he was teasing anyway. Spock liked Phillipa.

“And I will remind you,” Spock went on, “although I should not need to, that I am involved with Nyota.”

Ah yes, Nyota. Poor girl. Well, she’d have no trouble finding someone else after Spock accepted he was gay. She was funny and brilliant and extraordinarily beautiful, and Michael had gotten a distinctly queer vibe off her the one time they’d met. Hopefully she’d find a nice girl.

In truth, the whole thing made Michael incredibly sad, and not just for Nyota. Spock didn’t realize how obvious his intentions were; maybe he didn’t even understand them himself. Nyota was about as far from “the boy” as Spock could possibly get. After Spock had come back from Gol all those years ago, he had stopped talking about his supposed bondmate, and since then he had never said anything else about being attracted to men. Not even after Michael very loudly came out as bisexual and no family distress ensued. The only thing that had shocked the S'chn T'gais was Spock bringing home a woman.

Not wanting Spock to know the course her thoughts had taken, Michael let the matter drop. “Of course, I know. Anyway—give me updates. How’d this week go?”

Spock launched into a report on the ongoing setup of his science department and the staff training he was planning for the following day. Michael listened and encouraged, not letting on that she was slipping into one of the melancholy moods she sometimes found herself in after talking to Spock. They were relatively rare, now, but she knew she’d never be fully free of them. No matter how far Spock progressed, even though the man on her screen was now the executive officer of Starfleet’s flagship, sometimes when she looked at her baby brother she still saw a skinny, haunted teenager, crouching in the desert with his face covered in a dead animal’s blood.

“I’m proud of you, Spock,” she said, when their conversation reached a lull, and Spock looked pleased. Michael went to bed early that night, Phillipa stroking her hair to help her stop ruminating and fall asleep.

A year later, when Spock commed her looking desperate and helpless, admitting, “It would appear that I am subject to your particular weakness after all,” in an embarrassed rush, Michael was hardly surprised.

She took a deep breath and said, “I know, _sa-kai_. Tell me everything.”


	3. Chapter 3

The assignment came in on a normal day, like every other assignment they’d received in the last three years. Spock was in Jim’s quarters having tea and reading gamma-shift reports, sitting graceful and quiet at the captain’s desk. It was early morning, before Alpha shift, and Jim was neither fully awake nor fully dressed. He’d managed to get into his pants and undershirt, but he’d collapsed into the other desk chair before he got any further, desperately accepting the cup of coffee Spock held out for him.

This was their typical morning routine, and the intimate domesticity of it was not lost on Jim. He looked at Spock over the rim of his cup and Spock gave him one of his warm secret smiles.

Any faint hope Jim might once have had that serving with Spock would get rid of his childhood feelings had long since dissolved: all Jim had managed to do was fall in love with Spock all over again. And there were times—many times, in fact—that Jim thought his affections were returned, and truthfully that made it even worse. Jim had kept their secret for so long now that he could never go back. Telling Spock would hurt him and, if Spock did love him, _not_ telling Spock would hurt him. There was no way out.

“Inform me when you are conscious enough to receive my morning update,” Spock said kindly. Jim whined and Spock pursed his lips to keep himself from smiling even more. “I am aware you are not _currently_ ready, do not worry.”

Jim grunted in acknowledgement and put his head—plagued with another migraine—down on the desk next to his coffee. Spock put his hand over Jim’s and curled it more tightly around the cup. (Spock touched Jim’s hands a lot. He probably thought Jim didn’t know what it meant. Jim knew.)

“You should continue drinking. The caffeine will improve your headache.”

“How’d you know I have a headache?”

“Your comportment and body language change when you are experiencing one of your episodes of chronic pain.”

Jim sighed. His headache was especially bad today because his dreams had kept him up the night before. He didn’t have them often now, but for some reason they had been awful this week. Dead bodies in the streets, Spock’s starving body in his arms, Kodos’s face so close to his own.

Spock’s hand pressed into his again. “Jim? Are you alright?”

Jim sat up and gave Spock a smile he could probably tell was fake. “I’m fine. Just a bad headache, like you said.”

Spock nodded and, much more slowly than was necessary, withdrew his hand from Jim’s.

They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes until Jim’s computer dinged with a high-priority message from Starfleet. Jim furrowed his eyebrows against the spike of pain the noise caused. “We’re not due for new orders, are we?” They were on course to Gamma Hydra VI for a peace treaty ceremony.

“We are not.”

“Hm. Well, let’s see what’s up.” Jim reached out and answered the call, Spock shifting around the desk so they were sitting side-by-side. If any of the brass thought it was weird that Jim and Spock answered the comm in Jim’s quarters together so often, they had stopped showing any sign of it.

Admiral Barrow’s face appeared on the screen, looking distinctly anxious. Not a good omen.

“Morning, Jim. Spock. We’ve got a major situation, and I’m changing your mission orders." He paused, eyes flicking noticeably to Spock. "Uh, Spock. I want to give you fair warning: this might be a bit, ah, tough for you. Jim, how much do you know about the Tarsus IV disaster?”

Jim went rigid. Beside him, Spock did too.

As far as Spock knew, he was the only one who had just been asked about his own personal trauma, so Jim tamped down the sick panic that had surged in his throat and forced himself to speak normally.

“I’m familiar.”

Barrow nodded. “Good. I’m about to reveal classified and _highly_ sensitive information to you. You only speak of these details between yourselves, understand? That’s an order.”

“Yes, sir.” Jim said, even though he had a fairly good idea that this “revelation” wasn’t going to be a surprise to him. Spock hadn’t moved since Barrow had said “Tarsus IV.” Jim wished he could reach out and touch him, but that wasn’t an option right now.

“As you know, when several burned bodies were recovered on the colony, it was publicized that Kodos had been found among them. That’s not actually true. Starfleet has had intelligence since the beginning that Kodos is actually alive.”

Spock’s breath hitched and took up a noticeably uneven rhythm. His hands shot out to grip the arms of his chair. Barrow was clearly a bit uncomfortable with his expressive reaction but, since he was obviously aware that Spock was a Tarsus survivor, he kindly plowed on. It wasn’t like Jim was shocked, but it still felt like he had been doused in ice water.

“Starfleet thinks they’ve tracked him to a small troupe of actors that’s been making its way around fringe Federation worlds, called the Karidian Players. There have been three mysterious deaths in locations where they’ve performed, all of which correspond with when the troupe was there.

“We think Kodos is using the alias ‘Anton Karidian.’ They’re currently on Starbase 4 and we need you to go out there, get them onto your ship, and figure out if Karidian is really Kodos. It’s… a big job, I know. Spock, if you want to sit this one out, I can arrange a shuttle for you.”

In his peripheral vision, Jim could see Spock’s eyes dart sideways toward him. They had never actually talked about Tarsus, although it was publicly available in Spock’s record that he had been there and Spock undoubtedly knew Jim was aware of that. He had no idea how _intimately_ Jim was acquainted with Spock’s history, but that was neither here nor there. Jim had never brought the subject up—not only did he not want to force Spock to talk about something he obviously didn’t want to, he also didn’t trust himself to make it through the conversation without doing something weird.

“Thank you, sir, but no,” Spock said, and Jim had only ever heard his voice go so soft when they were alone. “I will remain onboard.”

Barrow smiled sympathetically. “Good man. I’m not sure why my superiors were so insistent that the _Enterprise_ take this mission—they were completely immovable no matter what I said. Truth be told,” he leaned forward slightly, “I suspect you have someone on board who saw Kodos’s face. There’s only 10 people who can say they did, and that list is so classified even I don’t have access to it. But I can’t think of any other reason why they’d demand the only ship with a Tarsus survivor on the command team.

“I’m going to push even harder to get you that list, though; I have a strong feeling that these murders are strategically taking out people who could identify Kodos. It’s not a theory I can confirm without names, but some of the whispers I’m hearing at HQ make me think I’m right.”

Jim took a deep breath and continued forcing the normal, totally-not-panicking voice out of his mouth. “Ok, well. Orders received, sir. We’ll set a course now.”

Barrow nodded. “I’ll send more information along as I get it. Be careful with this one, ok, Jim? This is about as sensitive as it gets.”

Oh really? Sensitive? Jim would never have guessed. It wasn’t like Starfleet had fucked him up to Hell and back forcing him to keep their secrets for 11 years.

“Yes, sir. Understood.”

“Good luck, gentlemen. Barrow out.”

The screen went black. They sat in silence for a few moments. Finally Jim reached out and hit a button on his desk.

“Kirk to bridge.”

“Bridge here, sir.”

“Please set course for Starbase 4. Disregard all previous orders.”

“Yes sir.” A short pause. “Course set. Estimated time of arrival… 42 hours.”

“Thank you. Kirk out.”

Silence descended again. Spock was still totally frozen, and Jim had no idea what to say to him. He was probably freaking out not only at the prospect of such an outrageously traumatizing mission assignment, but also because the past he thought he had hidden from Jim was suddenly on full display.

Jim tried to gather his composure, but forcing himself to act normally in front of Barrow had taken its toll. He was shaking faintly all over and was quickly approaching the brink of tears, that familiar burn in his eyes and nose. He couldn't let Spock see his alarm or Spock would get suspicious—there was no logical reason for Jim to react this way when he supposedly had no personal association with Tarsus IV. But the harder Jim tried to calm down, the tighter his chest felt and the higher his panic spun, until hiding his condition became impossible. But then, before he could figure out what to do, Spock shot up suddenly from the desk, knocking over his chair.

“Excuse me, Captain. I will not be reporting for Alpha shift on time; my apologies.” Then he fled through their bathroom, not even bothering to pick up his chair.

—-

Jim had screamed in Bones’s office more times than he could count—in anger, in frustration, in excitement—but today was very, very different.

The tranquilizer Bones had administered was supposed to take effect in about five minutes, but in Jim’s current state that was five minutes too many. So they were huddled together on the couch Jim had insisted on putting in the CMO office in their first month of service (in case Bones needed to fall asleep there), Jim curled up screaming in his arms.

“Ok,” Bones murmured into Jim’s hair. “Ok, darlin’, I’ve gotcha.”

Jim’s screams turned gradually into sobs, his fingers still clamped too tight on Bones's arm. Alpha started in five minutes: Bones had started to call Spock to give him the con in Jim’s absence, but Jim had gone absolutely frantic trying to stop him. So Uhura was in command for the foreseeable future.

Bones hadn’t asked what was going on, clearly waiting for him to calm down. But Jim needed him to know and couldn’t imagine trying to explain, so he grabbed his PADD and thrust it at Bones, gasping, “Mission orders!” before burying his face in Bones’s shoulder.

There was silence as Bones read, one arm still tight around Jim.

When Bones was officially made Jim’s CMO, Jim had told him about Kodos. Bones knew Jim was a Tarsus survivor and was well-versed in the medical heritage of his starvation, but Jim had kept the rest to himself. Even with Bones, Jim refused to spill his guts whenever they talked about Tarsus at the Academy; he would instead get prickly and inscrutable, impossible to get information out of.

But when the Enterprise launched, he figured there was a chance Starfleet would want their flagship’s doctor to know the whole story behind its captain in case he went crazy or something and they needed to cover their asses (again). He wanted Bones to hear it from him, not from some dry, judgmental Fleet file, so he told him about the classified list and the story behind it.

He still didn’t tell him about Spock. There was no way Bones might accidentally find out: even though his long-ago doctors had known about the bond, there was no account of it in his file whatsoever. There was a note about “pain caused by psychological distress and treated with bicaridine,” but that was it.

Once, early in the five-year mission, Bones had asked out of the blue, “Hey, did you know Spock is a Tarsus survivor, too?”

They were eating dinner in Bones’s quarters. Jim had stared at him in shock, unsure what to say. “Uh, yeah. I mean—it’s in his file.”

“Have you talked to him about it?”

“N– no. You know I can’t. He can’t know I was there.”

“Well, but you could trust _Spock_ to keep the fact that you saw Kodos a secret, don’t you think? It’s just, you still struggle with it so much. Maybe you could talk to him about how _he_ dealt with the fallout and, I don't know, get some Vulcan mind techniques for how to cope.”

Jim had stood up, vibrating with sudden panic. “That's a terrible idea and don’t ever fucking suggest it again. Spock can _never_ know I was on Tarsus, ok?”

And he had fled without finishing his dinner, without any further explanation. Bones, true friend that he was, had never talked about Spock and Tarsus again. When he had seen a raw, impacted bruise on Jim's soul, Jim had said, "Don't touch that, it hurts," and it was Bones’s nature to respect that, simply because Jim had asked him to.

Bones closed the mission report and put down the PADD. “Shit, Jim.”

“Barrow doesn’t,” Jim gasped, trying to get enough air in to form a sentence. “Barrow doesn’t know. He said he doesn’t have access to the list of people who saw Kodos but he thinks we probably have one on board and that’s why they gave us the mission.”

Bones snorted. “And he has no idea it’s you. Christ. Starting to feel any better?”

“A little,” Jim whispered, and Bones rubbed a hand along his back.

“What are you going to do about Spock?”

“He says he wants to do the mission—Barrow offered to let him sit it out but he said no.”

“Well _that’s_ fair to you,” Bones muttered.

“Barrow doesn’t know—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. It just pisses me off that Starfleet hid you away in this secret little box and basically made sure you never had any help. So are you going to tell Spock that you were there too?”

Jim shook his head hard. “ _No!_ He still can’t know.”

“Jim—”

“I said no!”

Bones sighed. “Ok, kid.”

They drifted into silence until Jim felt like he would be able to stand on his own two feet again. He rubbed his cheek against Bones’s shoulder once before he slowly rose from the couch. “I… I do need to talk to him though. About him being there. Then I want to send him down for a psych eval before he’s cleared for this mission. Is that ok?”

“Sure thing. I’ll get set up for him.”

“He deserves psychological support, I want to make sure—”

“So do you.”

“That’s what you just gave me,” Jim said, waving his hand irritably around the little office. “I’ll send him down in a bit.”

“Jim,” Bones said quietly, before he could open the door. “Whenever you’re ready to tell me the rest of your Tarsus story, I’m ready to listen.”

Jim looked helplessly over his shoulder at his friend, so patient and perceptive. How did he know there was more Jim had kept from him? Bones shrugged.

“You've got more holes in your heart than your story covers. It doesn't add up. Never did.”

Jim opened his mouth but couldn’t think of anything to say, so he left without another word.

—-

Riding on the thin veneer of medicated calm, Jim went straight to Spock’s quarters, entering through the bathroom to protect Spock’s privacy.

Spock responded immediately to Jim’s knock with a weak, “Come in, Jim.”

Spock was sitting at his desk looking listless and more than a little lost. It wasn’t rare for him to remind Jim of the young Vulcan he had fallen in love with on Tarsus, but today the resemblance was especially visceral.

“I guess we should talk,” Jim said. “Is it ok if I sit down?”

“Of course.” Spock seemed unwilling to look at him. Jim sat across the desk for his first officer, resisting the urge to reach out and touch him (both for Spock’s comfort and his own) and say, _It’s ok, you don’t have to tell me anything. I already know._

Spock took a deep breath and began. “I imagine that you were already aware that I am a Tarsus IV survivor, but I must apologize for not discussing it with you earlier.”

“Absolutely not, apology not accepted. You don’t owe my _anything_ , Spock, and especially not an explanation of your trauma. Your past is yours to disclose how and when you want to.”

Spock closed his eyes. His shoulders were slumped, body curled in on itself. “I appreciate your kindness. But I believe it is now imperative that I tell you what I experienced.”

“Only if that’s really what you want.”

“Are you aware of the basic timeline of events regarding the Tarsus IV disaster?”

People really needed to stop fucking asking Jim if he had basic knowledge about Tarsus. His knowledge was anything but basic.

“Yeah. I know the story.”

Spock nodded. “I was sent to Tarsus IV at 16 due to behavioral problems. It was publicized as a diplomatic gesture by a Federation ambassador; the Tarsus colony was regarded as poorly managed—and indeed it was—so it was seen as an act of good faith that my father was willing to send a so-called ‘high-profile’ child to live there.

“But in reality I had engaged in physical fights on Vulcan in response to being teased, and my behavior was generally disruptive. Tarsus IV was essentially my punishment.”

He glanced at Jim to see how this information was being received, and Jim tried for a non-judgemental expression that _didn’t_ look like someone listening to a story he’d already heard.

“I was enrolled in school there,” Spock continued, “until the colony began to descend into chaos. After a riot in which five individuals were killed, I escaped into the woods surrounding the settlement.”

Jim had started to sweat. _No_ , he thought. _No,_ you _didn’t escape into the woods, we escaped there together._ We _escaped_.

“I survived on stolen protein packs and water from a natural stream. I hid in the woods for 4 weeks. I reached a point of critical starvation and came very, very close to death. I was delirious and mostly unconscious when Starfleet finally arrived to rescue the surviving colonists.”

Spock stared at his lap. It was a cursory report without much detail. Having been there with him the whole goddamn time, Jim knew how much Spock was leaving out. But if this was all Spock was willing to reveal right now, Jim wouldn’t push him.

“I’m so sorry, Spock,” he said softly. In this, at least, he could be entirely honest. “I’m so sorry that happened to you. _S'ti th'laktra_.”

Spock finally lifted his head and his eyes warmed like they always did when he was looking at Jim.

“Thank you, Jim. It was a difficult journey back to health, and I still struggle with the psychological impact of this experience. But I have been stable for many, many years. I believe I am strong enough to endure this mission, but I admit that I am… unsettled.”

Jim leaned forward, wishing he could close the space between them altogether. “We’ll take this totally at your pace. If you want to bail, you just say the word and I’ll pull you out. There’s no judgement no matter what happens—you’re showing how amazing an officer you are just by being willing to try. Only do what you’re comfortable with, ok?”

Spock sighed. “You are so kind to me, Jim. I am fortunate to have you as my superior officer. And as my friend.”

Jim stared at him. What the hell was he supposed to do with _that_?

“Trust me, Spock. It’s really the other way around.”

—-

Jim insisted that Spock take time to meditate and settle himself before he returned to duty. After he left Spock’s quarters for the bridge, Spock laid out his mat, lit his candles, and then, finally, went to his bedside table to remove his treasured asenoi.

It was a significant object not simply because it was one of his few remaining artifacts from Vulcan; it was also the object Osu T’Ora had given him before he departed Gol 10 years ago.

Spock lit the asenoi and settled into the _loshirak_ , the smell of T’Ora’s preferred incense taking its automatic, soothing effect upon him.

For obvious reasons, the boy was haunting Spock’s thoughts. Sometimes months would go by in which Spock believed he had finally left the memory behind him, or at least accepted that the boy was a fantasy, but inevitably he managed to worm his way back into Spock's reality.

Because Spock could never _truly_ accept that the boy had been a hallucination. Some small part of him always believed, and his scarred bonding center was the touchstone of that belief. The older he got, the harder it was to deny that a very specific part of his brain had been affected; if it was starvation-related brain damage which had caused Spock to fabricate a bondmate, surely other parts of his mind would have been impacted. But it was only the area where once a spontaneous bond, that stuff of legend, had connected him to the boy.

It troubled Spock how attached he still felt to this figment, this _tam’a_. There were many logical reasons for Spock to feel guilty for his attraction to his captain, but the only one which still stood out was a sense of betraying the boy.

Spock had fallen in love with Jim so quickly it confounded him; he had never known such a cascade of emotion other than that he had felt for the boy. By now, Spock had truly ceased to care about regulations, about potential consequences, about logic. All of those obstacles felt conquerable as long as Jim was at his side.

Spock was not even concerned about Jim’s reciprocation: Jim was quite obviously in love with him and had been for some time. Spock did not know why they had not yet consummated their mutual feeling, but was content to wait while Jim navigated whatever internal conflicts he imagined to be important.

No, what disturbed Spock was the fear that one day the boy would return and find Spock committed to another. Spock truly did not know what he would do. The boy was his soulmate, his _t’hy’la_. He was also neither provably real nor likely alive.

Spock had searched for the boy over the years; he had combed every record on Tarsus to which he had legal access and some to which he did not. There was no boy that fit Spock’s memories in the school enrollment records, in the census information, or in the death logs.

Given that there was overwhelming evidence that the boy had never really existed, it was utterly illogical for Spock to see him as an obstacle to a relationship with Jim. But as he could not truly accept the apparent truth within himself, an obstacle the boy remained.

Spock could not imagine how he would react to having to choose between the boy or Jim; he felt inextricably devoted to each. He could think of no solution but to tear himself in two.

It had been many years since Tarsus was so strong a force in his life, but suddenly it had infiltrated everything he cherished: his ship, his rank, his captain. Kodos, the man who had taken everything from him, including the boy, was _alive_. The boy had been with Kodos when the bond was torn apart—was it possible that Kodos, be he Karidian or someone else, had the answers Spock had been seeking? Did Spock truly want his questions answered at all?

—-

They made it to Starbase 4 in two days. Jim and Spock passed the time in almost total silence, sometimes going off to the bridge or the labs but more often holing up in Jim’s quarters playing wordless games of chess.

Jim didn’t even try to sleep—the prospect of the nightmares he would have was far too terrible. He was better off awake.

They had gotten themselves invited to the Karidian Players’ afternoon performance of _Macbeth_ on the starbase, and Jim had called in a favor with Captain Daily of the _Astral Queen_ , the ship that was supposed to ferry Karidian’s troupe to their next stop. Daily and Jim had fucked a couple times and stayed friendly, and Jim had helped the smaller ship out a few times over the years. Jim asked Daily to “accidentally” fail to make his pickup, leaving himself poised to conveniently offer the Karidian Players a ride.

Jim and Spock sat in the back row of the theater. They could probably have come up with some duty-related reason for their seating choice if asked, but really they both just wanted to be as far from Karidian as possible.

While they waited for the show to begin, Spock fidgeted and fussed with his hair, the hem of his shirt, his communicator. Jim had very rarely seen him like his.

“Wanna play translations?” he asked. It was a game he had learned from Uhura: simple translations from one language to another at high speed. It was what she did to distract herself in high-stress situations, and Jim had found that it worked for him too.

Spock nodded. “Very well. Would you like to start?”

“You start. Standard to Vulcan. I need the practice. Gimme basic verbs.”

“To be.”

“ _Nam-tor_.”

“To have.”

“ _Ma_.”

“To know.”

“ _Fai-tor_.”

“To come.”

“ _Sarlah_. Also, dirty.”

Spock looked at him in confusion. “What is dirty?”

“‘To come’. Cause, you know…” Spock was totally lost, and not in a cute, clueless Vulcan way. “Never mind. Just a stupid joke.”

The lights went down at that moment, and Spock’s hand shot out for Jim’s. He took it and rubbed it soothingly between his own, but he couldn’t help a frisson of irritation. What exactly did Spock think he was going to see? _He_ didn’t know what Kodos looked like.

The actors filed out and Jim fixated on the stage, waiting for Karidian to appear as Macbeth. He slowly pickled in his rising anxiety, the stage lights blurring before him, hanging on each word as the first two scenes stretched and dragged.

But no matter how hard he stared, how focused he was, he could not have been prepared for Kodos to just walk onto the stage and start reciting Shakespeare.

_"So foul and fair a day I have not seen."_

He was older, heavier, but there wasn’t even a question: this was Kodos. The sense memory of seeing him hit Jim like fist: the thin nose, the slight upturn of his lips that looked like a sneer, the blank black eyes. Kodos the Executioner was right in front of him, and was about to board his ship.

Jim’s breath sped up and a prickle of sweat rose at his hairline. The noise of the room contracted into a dull ringing, and a shock of pain resounded in his head. He shot up, dropping Spock’s hand and unable to do anything but flee toward the door, knocking his legs against Spock's and almost tripping. He managed to get out and down the hall a ways before he couldn't go any farther. He found a little corner where he could face the wall and hyperventilate, trying to ground himself by pressing his fingers into the bland beige paneling.

Spock caught up to him almost immediately and with an alarmed, “Captain?” His hand went straight to the small of Jim’s back, a warm, reassuring pressure.

“It’s him,” Jim bit out. “It’s Kodos.”

Spock’s fingers pushed deeper into Jim’s skin, probably more for his own benefit. “But… how do you know?”

“I just know, ok? It’s him.”

“Did Starfleet provide you with his image?”

“Sure, something like that.” The lie was heavy in his chest, but what else was Jim supposed to say? He half expected Spock to put the pieces together then and there, but he was off his game and accepted Jim’s explanation. “Very well.”

His voice was soft and shaking, and that reminded Jim to force himself back to the present. Spock didn't get what was happening to Jim, and as far as he knew he was the only one suffering. He needed Jim to be the stable one right now. So Jim took a breath, gathering his composure, and finally turned away from the wall. He faced Spock’s hunched, uncertain figure and put a hand on his arm. “Are you ok?”

“No, Captain. I must admit that I am not. Kodos took more from me than… than you know.”

 _Try me_ , Jim’s brain quipped unhelpfully. “What do you need, Spock? How can I help you?”

Spock looked up at him. “I need to proceed with this mission as planned. I am… compromised, but I am functional.”

 _Jim_ didn’t feel particularly functional, but he smiled at Spock and nodded. “Ok. Let’s go back to the ship wait until the play’s over and the Players find out they have no transport. We’ll offer them a ride and beam them up then.”

“How do you plan to engage Kodos in order to definitively prove his existence?”

Every time Jim had asked himself that question he had been overcome with panic, so his plan was still pretty fucking nebulous. “I haven’t figured that out yet. Let’s just get them on board for now.”

When they were back on the _Enterprise_ and heading for their quarters, Spock leaned too close into Jim’s personal space (as usual), and spoke so quietly Jim could barely hear.

“There is one way in which you could help me, Captain, if you are amenable. Is it reasonable to request your patience with my less-than-optimal performance?”

Jim stopped walking and stared at Spock. Ever since these orders came in, Spock had seemed so like his 16-year-old self, terrified and unsure and slightly needy, and Jim didn’t know how much more he could take.

“Of _course_ , Spock. You don’t even need to ask for that. I’m here, ok? I’ve got you.”

Spock smiled, right there out in the open, eyes homed in on Jim like he never wanted to look away. “Thank you, Jim.”

In Jim’s head, sickening pain rolled out from the site of the dead bond. It took every ounce of will he possessed not to fall over, let alone keep the pain out of his expression. “No problem, Spock. Come on, let’s get back to quarters.”

—-

Exactly as planned, the Karidian Players realized their transportation predicament and gratefully accepted the invitation to travel with the _Enterprise_. Neither Jim nor Spock went to greet them when they beamed up; perhaps that seemed strange to Karidian and his troupe, but Uhura had gone in their stead and Spock was confident enough in her hospitality that he was not concerned.

Spock and Jim formed a plan to get close to Karidian the next evening: they would host a cocktail party with the falsely stated purpose of celebrating the troupe’s theatrical achievements. In reality, they would speak to Kodos and hopefully gather enough information on which to base a continuing strategy.

They conferred over logistics into gamma shift, lingering on details both knew were unnecessary to discuss ahead of time. Spock suspected Jim was humoring him; truthfully he did not want to be alone with the knowledge that Kodos was only one deck below him.

But finally they separated for bed and Spock returned to his quarters. He completed his reports and several of Jim’s, but eventually he could no longer ignore that his body required sleep. He spent longer than necessary on his nightly grooming before finally getting into bed and forcing himself to rest. His mind resisted, but Spock focused on controlling his autonomic functions, successfully drawing unconsciousness around him like a shawl. But dragging his unwilling mind into sleep was not without consequences.

_Spock ran through the tall grass and waving grain as fast as he could, but his stomach was empty and his muscles heavy. Ahead of him, the boy flitted like a ghost, bright and tremulous._

_“Come on, Spock!” he called over his shoulder. “You have to run faster!”_

_Spock tried to increase his speed, but he could not get close enough to bring the boy’s face into focus._

_“Wait!” he cried out, “Please wait for me!”_

_The boy looked over his shoulder again and a flash of bright, electric blue suffused Spock’s entire world in a momentary blast._

_“Do not leave me!” he begged, and at his plea the boy down slowed to a stop. He turned his head slightly, not enough for Spock to see his face but enough to speak over his shoulder again._

_“I could never leave you,” he said. “I never did.”_

_Spock finally caught up to him. He grabbed the boy’s arms and swung him around, his face coming into sharp focus. Neon blue eyes and such a familiar smile._

_“Jim,” Spock breathed, and Jim grinned as his 14-year-old face shivered in and out of reality until he was transmuted, transformed, into Spock’s captain—_

_But as soon as Jim’s adult form had replaced the adolescent, his smile began to wither, followed closely by his body. He curled in on himself, fat and muscle being sucked away and his skin shrinking against his bones. His eyes seemed to grow huge in his sockets, imploring and afraid. He reached out and grabbed Spock's arms with his bony, clinging hands. His form wavered, one moment a child and the next a man, like a malfunctioning hologram._

_“Spock, you have to promise me: if I die here, you do what you have to do, ok? You take my body and you eat it, and you _live_. Take me inside you and that way I’ll always be with you. Let me be with you Spock, let me—”_

Spock woke up gasping, tangled in his blankets.

It had only been a dream, but seeing Jim’s face on the boy had lit an emotion in Spock’s chest for which he had no name. Heart hammering in his side and too frightened to second guess himself, Spock scurried out of bed and through the bathroom, not even bothering to knock before entering Jim’s quarters. He could not be alone tonight.

—-

Jim couldn’t get to sleep that night no matter how hard he tried; he was simply too unsettled by the reality that Kodos was on his ship. After three hours of tossing and turning and going down rabbit holes of memory, he was considering going to see if Spock was awake when he heard a commotion in the bathroom. The door slid open and Spock came hurtling in, face a mix of horror and grief and longing.

He looked so spooked that Jim was worried he might need to leap into duty and scrambled out of bed, but Spock held up two shaking, placating hands.

“I– I’m sorry to disturb you, Captain, I—”

But his apology dissolved into a sob. Clearly embarrassed, he covered his mouth with his hands, but one sob followed another until he was shaking with them, looking small and helpless in the middle of Jim’s quarters. Jim didn’t stop to think about how he should respond. He just closed the space between them and put his arms around Spock, Spock clinging to Jim like he was a life-preserver in a barren ocean.

“Hey,” Jim soothed. “Hey, it’s ok. I’m here. It’s ok. You’re safe.”

“I cannot feel safe with him aboard! I cannot!”

Jim pulled him tighter. “Well, yeah. Me neither. But we’ve got security on him, he can’t get to us.”

They breathed against each other for a moment, each in their own silent, irrevocably separate well of anxiety.

“Let’s sit down,” Jim said finally, but Spock didn’t let go, just pulled back enough to look pleadingly into Jim’s face.

“May I sleep here with you tonight? I cannot bear the prospect of being alone.”

“Oh,” Jim said, taken aback. “Uh, of course. Of course you can.”

He’d barely finished speaking before Spock was in his bed and under the covers.

Jim stared at him, head spinning, but all he could really do was drift bemusedly after Spock and get in beside him. He sat back against the headboard and Spock instantly latched onto him again, arm across his legs and head in his lap.

“Ok,” Jim said intelligently. Although they hadn’t been close to each other like this since Tarsus, Jim’s hand still went automatically to stroke Spock’s hair. “So I guess we’re not… being discreet tonight?”

“What is the point of it?” Spock muttered.

Jim didn’t really have a good answer for that. Instead, despite knowing that Spock was probably going to say more stuff about Tarsus that would unsettle Jim’s very foundation, he asked, “Did something happen to make you this upset?”

He felt Spock swallow. “I experienced a nightmare. It is a rare occurrence for me… and currently I find myself too unbalanced to achieve calm with logic or mind techniques.”

“Do you want to describe it to me?”

Spock tightened his hold on Jim’s legs. “ _No_.”

“Ok, ok. That’s fine. Whatever makes you comfortable.”

“Thank you, Jim.”

Spock lapsed into silence, but after a few minutes, he spoke again, very quietly. “In light of this display of agitation, I feel I must admit to you that I dramatically underrepresented the trauma I endured on Tarsus IV.”

 _No shit._ “I mean, I figured. You don’t need to fill in the gory details if you don’t want to. But you can, obviously, if that’s what you need.”

“There is one aspect of my experience there that I… have not shared with anyone for some time. I find I wish to share it with you in particular.”

A bubble of anticipation started expanding in Jim’s chest. “Ok.”

“My memories of Tarsus IV are actually quite disjointed. In the past it has been difficult to determine if all of my memories are genuine or if I succumbed to hallucinations as my starvation progressed.”

This was the first thing Spock had told Jim that he didn’t already know, and waiting to understand the implications of what Spock was saying was distinctly unpleasant. Spock went on, voice picking up speed as if he couldn’t tolerate holding any of this in for a moment longer.

“But I have many memories of a human boy I met at the colony school. He interceded on my behalf with a group of bullies and we quickly became friends.”

Jim’s breath caught. His brain felt full of cotton.

Spock remembered him.

“I mentioned that I escaped into the forest and was thus able to avoid the massacre. My memory is actually that the boy and I escaped together. We had discovered a secret place near a low cliff face, and that was where we hid. We alternately slept and kept watch as our situation became increasingly dire, and I remember him protecting me. He bolstered me. At this time, I was very newly aware of my attraction to my own sex, and this boy was the first individual to show unfailing acceptance.

“I… there is something that I remember happening between the boy and myself that has caused me to doubt whether or not he truly existed. When we were very near the end of our lives, he confessed romantic feelings for me. I had felt an attraction to him from the very beginning of our acquaintance, and when I informed him of this, he requested that we kiss. When we did so, our minds... became linked. Deeper than a meld, more permanent. It was... a pair bond… These types of telepathic connections are the Vulcan form of marriage.”

He paused, probably to let Jim express… surprise? Confusion? What emotion would Jim feel if he wasn’t secretly the very boy Spock was describing? Jim had never been sure if Spock knew they had been bonded at all, or if he remembered anything about Jim. He had rarely imagined that Spock might still know this much. He squeezed Spock’s shoulder and hoped that was enough to encourage him to go on.

Apparently it was, because Spock continued, words starting spill and trip over themselves. “Spontaneous bonds are an extremely rare phenomenon, but they _have_ been documented. I viscerally remember the sensation of the bond exploding between us: it was euphoric and terrifying. But… he was captured by Kodos’s guards and brought to Kodos himself and… and…”

He curled in closer and Jim tightened his hold, realizing belatedly that tears were streaming down his face. Hearing Spock describe this moment from his perspective was worse than he could have anticipated.

“I do not know his exact motives,” Spock whispered, “But I suddenly became aware in our connection that the boy intended to sever the bond in order to protect me. He may have been concerned that Kodos would use the bond as a tool to find me because of my status as Sarek’s child, and it is quite likely he was right—it was in fact my father’s inability to contact me which finally sent ships to Tarsus IV.

“Regardless, I could feel how primally the boy believed that eliminating our link was his only choice. So he… he tore it into pieces. He was not a telepath; he had no psionic skill and his actions were crude. I cannot describe the– the unbearable pain—”

Jim finally lost control and heaved a single sob, clinging to Spock as if his grip might take them back in time to rewrite this nightmare. Spock gently extricated himself and sat up, tears on his own cheeks and eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Jim?”

“S- sorry, sorry,” Jim said, shaking his head. “I’m just. Sorry.”

He had no real way to explain himself. He took some deep breaths and tried to force himself to calm down.

“Go on, I’m sorry.”

“If this is too upsetting for you—”

“ _No_ , I know it’s is a big deal for you to tell me this. Please. _Please_."

Spock watched him with concern but continued, although he stayed sitting up as if now he wanted to keep his eye on Jim. “In any event, when the boy broke the bond, the clumsiness of his actions damaged my memory. I can no longer recall his name, his face, or any identifying features. And I have tried. Desperately. Jim, you are shaking.”

Jim put his hand on the side of Spock’s head and steered him back down into his lap. “Just ignore me. Go on.”

Spock huffed, but it was obvious from the way he instantly relaxed under Jim’s touch that he wasn’t going to fight back.

“I must be totally honest: there is no record of this boy. My parents were distressed by my insistence that I had been bonded, and believed the boy to be a creation of my disturbed mind, the brain damage a result of malnourishment. Their belief was supported by the fact that no Tarsus colonist on record matches the description I provided. I… I suppose that should be evidence enough for me as well.”

He paused, the tumble of his words dying down. When he didn’t go on, Jim couldn’t help but push, just a little: “But it’s _not_ enough evidence for you?

“No,” Spock whispered. “He still feels real to me, and he always has. He has shaped every aspect of my life. Perhaps it sounds absurd to you even if he was real, as the romance was adolescent and short-lived, but I was never able to stop loving him. Bonds do not form spontaneously between those who are not meant to be one, and I cannot let go of him, no matter how hard I attempt to. He is the star I steer by.”

Were they back on Tarsus, starving in the dirt? From how shaky and bereft Jim felt, it certainly fucking seemed like it. All he could think to say was, “Spock,” voice so quiet he could barely hear himself.

“Do you understand why I want you in particular to know this?” Spock asked softly.

Jim sniffed, digging one hand into his eyes and trying to think. “I can think of a few guesses, yeah.”

Spock sat up again and stared hard at him. “I both hope for and fear his possible return. I cannot imagine being taken from you, but neither can I imagine being anywhere but at his side.”

_He has no idea._

Spock’s eyes were wide and sad. Jim reached out and laid his hand against Spock’s cheek. “Luckily, you don’t have to make a choice like that tonight. Thank you for telling me this, Spock. I… I get how… significant it is. For you to tell me specifically.”

“Do you?” Spock asked, imploring.

“What do you want me to say? That I’ve loved you this whole time and I want to be with you?”

“That would be a start, yes.”

Jim laughed, a fresh wave of tears breaking over his cheeks. “Ok, well. Consider it said. But I can’t do this tonight, Spock. This is just… It’s too much all at once.”

Spock closed his eyes and nodded, shifting like he was going to get off the bed. Jim grabbed his sleeve. “Um, excuse you, I didn’t say you were going anywhere. Get back here.”

He gave Spock a watery smile and held out his arm, and Spock, expression besotted and grateful, snuggled back up against his side.

“Let’s just rest tonight, ok?” Jim started dragging his nails gently against Spock’s scalp. “Kodos isn’t going anywhere, and we need to recharge before we can figure out what to do with him.”

“Very well, Jim,” Spock muttered, and Jim could hear that he was already fading. At 16, Spock had loved having his head rubbed like this, and that apparently hadn’t changed. His body sank deeper and deeper into Jim’s hold, breathing evening out. Jim kissed his forehead and whispered, “Sleep.”

But an hour later, Jim was still desperately awake, sitting in the dark with Spock in the curve of his arm. His thoughts were a cyclone, darting from one disturbing revelation to another.

Spock remembered him. He didn’t know he remembered _Jim_ specifically, but in truth he had been missing Jim as badly as Jim had been missing him. 11 years ago, Jim’s clumsy psi-null mind had _not_ , in fact, excised itself completely from Spock’s. He had left traces, fragments.

If Jim had gotten that part wrong, what if _all_ of his choices had been wrong? What if it _wasn’t_ cruel to tell Spock the truth? Spock wanted him, but he also still wanted his “boy,” and Jim could take that conflict away with one confession.

And maybe, just _maybe_ , Jim deserved Spock after all. Spock longed for him, he thought they were meant to be one, he had just described without reservation all of the feelings Jim guarded so fiercely, afraid they would be judged or dismissed. Spock had said that Jim was _the star he steered by_.

One obstacle remained: If Kodos was still at large, was it possible that Spock might still be in danger if he knew the truth? But what if their mission was successful, and Kodos was no longer free? What then?

Jim eased slowly onto his back, shifting Spock beside him. Spock didn’t stir, limp and heavy and obviously exhausted from the day they’d had. Jim stared at him for a moment—the elegant curve of his ear, his sharp cheekbones, his soft mouth—before he allowed himself to put his head down in the crook of Spock’s neck and close his eyes, breathe in this forbidden comfort. He didn’t have any answers, and there was no use trying to find them tonight. For now he had this, and that would have to be enough.

—-

The next day after Alpha shift, Jim sent Spock off to meditate again. Spock spent the entire afternoon in the _loshirak_ , ordering his mind as he prepared to interact with the man Jim assured him was Kodos. The man who had quite possibly been the last to see Spock’s bondmate alive, who had quite probably been the one to kill him.

Jim came to draw him out of meditation at 1900 hours, giving him enough time to put on his dress uniform and neaten his hair.

“You look nice,” Jim said wistfully before they left quarters, and Spock experienced the familiar pang of guilt, the sensation of being caught between two individuals.

“As do you, Jim.”

The cocktail party had already begun in Rec Room 5, the Karidian Players mingling with _Enterprise_ crewmembers amid a general sense of merriment. Only Jim and Spock knew of the dark undercurrent tainting this event, spilling shadows into the corners of the room. A Yeoman handed them drinks as soon as they walked in, but Spock held his thoughtlessly without drinking. He was far too distracted.

Spock located Karidian immediately; he admitted that not knowing the man’s location made him feel distinctly unsafe. He was smiling kindly and listening as an ensign spoke to him.

As Spock watched, Karidian turned his head toward them, eyes roving casually over the new arrivals to the party. But as soon as his gaze passed Jim, it snapped back and froze, the ensign forgotten.

Spock turned to Jim in alarmed confusion. He was staring straight back at Karidian, their eyes locked and something unnamable passing between them. The movement drew out so long that Spock’s breathing began to pick up; he did not know what was happening but was confident that something was terribly wrong.

Karidian finally broke the eye contact and turned back to the ensign. Jim swayed beside Spock and he was forced to reach out and steady the captain on his feet.

“Jim?”

Jim shook his head sharply as if to say _not now_. Spock realized why: Karidian must have been making his excuses to the ensign for he was now heading toward them. He bore a warm smile as if the charged moment he and Jim had just shared had not happened.

“Captain Kirk!” he greeted, and held out his hand. Jim took it with no hesitation, but Spock would have sworn that he felt a pulse of Jim’s fear and panic inside his own mind. It was an odd sensation, but he dismissed it as a projection of his own current emotions.

“Thank you so much for your timely generosity, Captain! We would have been quite stranded without you!”

Jim nodded, a strained smile barely lifting the corners of his mouth. “It’s our pleasure, Mr. Karidian. It’s just lucky we happened to be going your way.” He gestured to Spock, who quailed as Karidian’s gaze focused on him for the first time. “This is Commander Spock, my first officer.”

Spock raised the ta’al, dreading the possibility that Karidian might try to take his hand. He did not think he could bear the Executioner’s touch. But the older man simply offered the ta’al in return. “Lovely to meet you, Commander.”

“And you, sir.”

A short silence fell and threatened to become uncomfortable, but then a sudden boatswain’s whistle nearby made Jim jump.

“Bridge to Captain.”

Jim glanced at Spock and opened his mouth as if he was considering ignoring the hail, but finally took a breath and murmured, “Excuse me.” He strode to the nearest wall comm, leaving Spock and Karidian alone. A tremor went down Spock’s spine but he forced himself to remain outwardly emotionless. When he managed to make eye contact with Karidian he found his empty eyes already on him, dark and calculating.

“I imagine you have something to ask me, Spock,” he said, much too softly for anyone else to hear. Panic such as Spock had not felt for years suffused him in an instant, numbing his extremities and causing a spike of vertigo.

“ _W– What_?”

“We have a mutual acquaintance, do we not?”

Spock’s vision tunneled, aware of nothing but the black holes of Karidian’s eyes. Time seemed to slow and reality to shift; nothing existed outside the borders of their eye contact.

But before Spock could untangle his thoughts, let alone answer, Jim was back at his side and Karidian’s pleasant smile returned, no lasting residue of the monster who had briefly shown himself but a moment ago. Spock looked away, the spell broken, choosing to focus on his glass and the untouched beverage within.

“Sorry about that. Our navigator needed my input on a course setting.”

“No need to apologize, Captain, no need! I hope there are no barriers to our safe passage on this ship?”

Jim’s mouth curled up in a less-than-friendly expression. “Of course not. None at all.”

Spock hated seeing Jim’s cold and disingenuous smile, his angry eyes. To distract himself, he lifted his glass, intending to take a long drink and hope there was enough sugar in the beverage to relax his nerves somewhat.

But with no warning, Jim’s hand shot out and smacked the glass _hard_ , liquid flying off to the side and directly onto Karidian’s shirt.

“Oh, shit!” Jim exclaimed. “I am so sorry, Mr. Karidian, that was clumsy of me. Here, let me help you clean up. In fact, I insist. I’ll show you where the closest sink is.”

He took Karidian helpfully—but firmly, Spock noticed—by the elbow and practically dragged him toward the doors of the rec room. Spock looked to Karidian to gauge his reaction to Jim’s _extremely_ obvious lie and was disturbed to see him staring at Jim with that eerie, smoke-curl smile.

They disappeared through the doors and Spock stood stunned for a moment. He was still reeling from what Karidian had said to him, and now also deeply concerned about whatever scheme Jim was executing. Spock was eager to put as much distance as possible between himself and the demon manifesting in the middle of his life, but he couldn’t just leave Jim unprotected in his clutches.

After a moment’s consideration he fled the party for his quarters. He could not only regain his bearings there, he could also track Jim’s location and make a decision as to how to proceed.

When he had closed himself in the sanctuary of his quarters and taken a few stabilizing breaths, Spock turned on his computer and located Jim in Meeting Room 15, a small, rarely used room near Rec Room 5. But his was not the only signal there—he was alone with Karidian.

What was Jim _doing_? Spock endured another spike of alarm when he realized the doors were locked from the inside—anyone could enter the room, but neither Jim nor Karidian could leave.

But suddenly Spock’s attention was caught by a very significant detail: the room’s sound recorder had been activated. Jim was recording their conversation.

Spock knew Jim well enough to suspect that his plan was to goad Kodos into a confession of his identity, and that was intelligent but decidedly unsafe. Spock’s logic told him to proceed immediately to Meeting Room 15 and make sure Jim was not alone with Spock’s own personal bogeyman. But the part of his brain that always pushed back at this logic wanted to give Jim a chance. If Jim could, he would undoubtedly insist Spock allow him to proceed at his own reckless—and usually effective—pace. Shaking, Spock reached out and entered his clearance to patch into the room’s audio feed.

—-

Jim hadn’t had much choice but to answer the hail from the bridge, but he hadn’t taken his eyes off Spock and Kodos for one second. There was no way he was leaving Spock alone and unsupervised with the man he’d spent a decade trying to protect him from.

That was Kodos’s mistake: he must have underestimated just how obsessive Jim was about Spock’s safety. Because Jim watched every moment of their interaction, including the one when Kodos said something to Spock that made him freeze in horror, too upset to realize Kodos was putting something in his drink.

Kodos was good, Jim would give him that. His actions were quick and sure and no one around them noticed anything amiss. But not only was Jim’s concern for Spock laser-focused, he had also grown up in bars picking up sleazy men, and he knew a roofie when he saw one.

He strode back to them. A vibrating anger was climbing to dangerous levels within him, but he held himself together enough act normal as he apologized for stepping away. He kept Spock’s drink in his peripheral vision, making sure Spock didn’t try to take a sip.

“No need to apologize, Captain,” Kodos said in his infuriatingly pleasant voice, “no need! I hope there are no barriers to our safe passage on this ship?”

What a snake. Jim knew perfectly well that there were endless layers of meaning beneath his unctuous pleasantries.

“Of course not. None at all.”

He was trying to quickly figure out what to do about the spiked drink when, from the corner of his eye, he saw Spock lift the glass to his mouth.

Entirely out of instinct, he flung out his hand and knocked the glass away. It was either happily coincidental or subconsciously intentional that the drink spilled all over Kodos.

“Oh, shit!” he said, filling his voice with an obviously fake apology. “I am so sorry, Mr. Karidian, that was clumsy of me. Here, let me help you clean up. In fact, I insist. I’ll show you where the closest sink is.”

He grabbed Kodos by the elbow and dragged him out of the rec room. He could feel Spock’s eyes on him but didn’t look back.

He really didn’t have a plan; he had an adrenaline-fueled need to get Kodos alone, get up in his face and intimidate him into never even _looking_ at Spock ever again. But he knew in a distant, barely accessible part of his brain that not only would that be dangerous, it was also probably pointless. Kodos was very unlikely to be intimidated by the boy he had once nearly killed and who had lived the rest of his life in paralyzing fear of meeting him again.

But right now, Jim was too angry to be afraid, and his quicksilver, hotheaded brain spooled out until a plan hit him.

“Just up here!” he said cheerfully, and steered Kodos into a small meeting room. As the doors closed, Jim reached behind his back and locked them from the inside, as well as hitting the manual toggle for the room’s sound recorder. He successfully managed it before Kodos turned around to face him, smile now cunning and steely.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice, Captain, that we passed a washroom immediately after leaving the party.”

“Oh, believe me,” Jim said honestly, “I would never underestimate you. We're overdue for a talk, aren't we?”

”About what, dear boy?”

The threatening endearment instantly brought Jim back to the floor of the governor’s house on Tarsus, sprawled weak and terrified at Kodos’s feet. He tried not to betray his reaction now, but based on Kodos’s satisfied smirk, he wasn’t successful.

“Let’s cut the bullshit. Are you Kodos?”

“Do you believe that I am?”

“I _know_ you are.”

He held up his hands as if in supplication. “Then I am Kodos, if it pleases you to believe that. I am an actor. I play many parts.”

“You're an actor now,” Jim said, voice barely above a snarl, “What were you 11 years ago?

“Younger, Captain. Much younger.”

“So was I,” Jim said. “That was the last time I ever got to be young.”

Kodos leaned casually against the meeting table that took up most of the small room. Jim edged around it, away from the door. He hoped that putting Kodos closer to the exit and letting him think he could escape might lull him into a sense of security, which in turn might loosen his tongue. Kodos followed him with his flint-sharp eyes. “It sounds like you’ve had a difficult existence. How unfortunate.”

Jim wanted to fling the blame for that in Kodos’s face, but he didn’t rise to the bait.

“What did you put in my first officer’s drink?” His voice had the quiet, intimidating tone that had been the turning point in several difficult missions over the last three years.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, Captain.”

“Oh really,” Jim sneered. “Listen to me, Kodos. You will _stay away_ from Spock.”

“Or what? What will you do to me, _Captain_ , if I go after your precious Vulcan? You’ve been trying to protect him from me all these years, and yet here I am.”

Jim stomach lurched painfully. They were getting close.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Kodos slowly pulled out a chair and lowered himself into it. His movements were _too_ relaxed; Jim had a feeling he was prepared to jump at a moment’s notice.

“Oh, I suppose it doesn’t matter if we’re honest with each other, does it? After all, the fact that you know I am Kodos is the crux of why I’m here.”

“You’re here because I engineered it. You’re here to answer to _me_ and to everyone else whose life you destroyed.”

Kodos chuckled. “I’ll admit it was quite a surprise when I was invited onto your ship; I never dreamed I’d get to you and Spock so easily.”

Jim’s whole body went cold. “So you _are_ behind the murders.”

“Of course, Captain. But I have limited myself to those who could identify me—I have never killed for anything but necessity.”

“ _Necessity?_ ”

“Yes.” Some of the swagger left Kodos’s face, but it was not guilt that replaced it. It was something like… apathy. Exhausted apathy. “I killed four thousand people in order to save four thousand others. To prevent the death of the _entire_ colony.” He shook his head. “Truthfully I’ve always found this black-and-white condemnation of my actions so _frustrating._ I am condemned because I was on the only one willing to do what was necessary.”

He looked back at Jim, snapping out of his reverie. “Just as it is necessary to kill you and any others who could name me.”

The sheer narcissism of Kodos’s madness wasn't exactly a surprise, but it was still hard to hear.

“Spock didn’t see your face,” Jim said quietly, and Kodos looked up at him in mild surprise.

“Ah, yes. I forget that you have only one true priority. Very well, let’s talk about Spock. Your little husband.”

“Spock isn’t my husband.”

“No, but he was for a short while, wasn’t he? Such a charming, _strange_ young love.”

Jim was frozen in place. He knew the recorder had already gotten what it needed—a full confession of identity—but he didn’t seem to be able to move.

“How do you know that?”

“The Aenar woman. Do you remember her? She was inside your mind when you performed your little telepathic divorce trick.”

“I remember,” Jim whispered.

“I told her that I would help her escape the fire if she explained what she had seen in your mind, and she was kind enough to do so. I remember it vividly: the house burning down around us, the smoke clogging her lungs while she babbled about you and the Vulcan being torn apart and how much pain you both felt.”

He didn’t go on. Jim assumed he didn’t want to know, but he asked anyway: “What happened to her?”

Kodos looked surprised. “The Aenar? She died, of course. She was not nearly valuable enough to be worth saving.”

Jim’s stomach lurched with nausea. Kodos stood from the table and took a few relaxed steps toward Jim. He was already against the wall and had nowhere to go.

“I will reassure you of one thing, James: you _were_ right that Spock was always in danger. I had always intended to kill him along with you and the others. I knew you would never be able to resist him. Somehow you’d end up back together—and here you are! You would eventually find your way back into each other’s minds, and then whatever you remembered, whatever image of me you held in your memory, would be be accessible to Spock. No, I could never abide Spock’s life.

“But I confess to one idle curiosity: Does Spock know who you are? I’ve kept track of you—private sources, of course—and it would appear that Spock has no idea you were his knight in shining armor on Tarsus IV. Is that right?”

Jim didn’t answer, fingers digging into the wall behind him.

“Mmm,” Kodos nodded. “I see. Oh, how sad for you. You sacrificed any chance at happiness just to keep him safe, and he has no idea! Not that he would have wanted you even if he had known; your life has certainly proved my point that you are worthless. Ambassadors’ sons don’t bring home delinquent sluts, do they?”

He clucked his tongue. “You see, James, this is why you must make _yourself_ the top priority. Because all your work, all your heartache? It was for nothing. I’m going to kill you, and then I’m going to kill Spock, and all will have been for naught. For surely, James, you don't think I'm stupid enough to believe that you've never told Spock _anything_ that could identify me? Whether he remembers you or not, I'm sure you haven't been able to keep your slutty little hands off of him—how many times have you spoken of me during pillow talk?”

Jim barked out a laugh, white hot revulsion so intense he was dizzy. “You honestly think you’re going to be able to kill the captain and first officer of Starfleet’s flagship, let alone get away with it?” Without meaning to, he suddenly found himself shouting. “You will _never_ hurt Spock! You didn’t get to him then and you won’t get to him now. I might be trash but there’s one thing I’m good for and it’s keeping him safe! He doesn’t have to know me, all that matters is that _you_ don’t get him!”

Kodos folded his hands in front of him and smiled, as if Jim’s outburst had amused him. They stared at each other, Jim panting slightly. His head was spinning and he was no longer controlled enough to be safe: this needed to end _now_. He needed to figure out how to restrain Kodos or at least lock him in the room—

Suddenly Kodos lunged forward. Before Jim could even react, he had slammed him up against the wall with a hand around his throat. With the other, he reached into a pocket and withdrew a tiny vial, the same as he had had at the cocktail party.

“You asked what I put in Spock’s drink, James? It’s a poison. Instantly lethal and totally undetectable.”

He shook Jim’s neck and black spots started popping in the corners of his eyes. Then he raised the vial to Jim’s lips, ready to tip it in. Jim scrabbled at Kodos’s arm but his grip was strong and Jim was quickly weakening from lack of oxygen.

“I’ve already hacked your sensor system and made one of your shuttlecraft untraceable. I will be off this ship and far, far away before anyone realizes I’m gone. But first, I’m going to finish the task you interrupted and kill your beloved Spock. My secrets die with the two of you.”

“Joke’s– on you,” Jim choked. “He doesn't- know– anything!”

“Liar!” Kodos shouted, banging Jim’s head against the wall. “You filthy, worthless little—”

But he was cut off by the sudden whine of a phaser blast. It hit him square in the back of the head and he crumpled; revealed behind him was Spock standing straight and sure with a phaser in his confident hands.

Jim gasped for breath, clutching his throat, sagging against the wall and slipping down onto the floor. Spock rushed to him.

“Are you able to breathe?”

Jim nodded but he wasn’t actually sure; he was gasping more than he was breathing, the shivery chill of shock setting in.

“A security team is on their way,” Spock said, which was almost immediately confirmed by Hendorff and four other officers rushing in. Spock gestured to Kodos’s stunned body.

“See that this man is transported to the brig and kept under a two-officer guard at all times. He is extremely dangerous.”

Hendorff gave a tight, “Yessir.” Jim watched, trying to believe his eyes, as Kodos was lifted and carried away. Once they were alone, Spock sat heavily on the floor next to Jim. In a toneless voice he said, “Computer, secure this room from the outside.”

For an unmeasured amount of time, they sat in stunned silence. Kodos was no longer missing, no longer an ever-present threat hovering on the edge of Jim’s awareness. It was impossible to believe.

“How did you know I needed help?” Jim asked eventually.

“I returned to my quarters as soon as you left the cocktail party and traced your location. I saw that you had locked yourself in with Kodos and that you were recording whatever conversation was taking place. I… I listened.”

Jim shifted to sit knee-to-knee with Spock, dizzy and weaving slightly.

“How much did you hear?”

“Enough to reach several staggering conclusions,” Spock said simply. “I ask that you clarify one in particular.”

Jim barely knew where to begin. “I was on Tarsus, too, but I’ve never been allowed to tell anyone because I saw Kodos’s face. I was scrubbed from the record. It’s... been a hard secret to keep.”

Spock took a deep breath. “I am so sorry, Jim. I cannot imagine how I would have coped with the dearth of resources that was forced upon you. However,” his voice shook a little. “That is not the issue I am currently asking you to adress, and I believe you know that.”

Jim looked up into Spock’s big, hopeful eyes. What Spock needed Jim to tell him was so huge, so complicated. How could something as limited as words be enough to explain it?

He settled on, “You’re not crazy. You didn’t imagine the boy. He was real and he was really your bondmate.”

“Do you know that because you _are_ him?”

Jim shuddered. After so many years of silence, answering this question felt impossible. “Yes.”

Spock took a deep breath, closing his eyes. When he opened them again they were dark and imploring.

“Why did you not _tell_ me? This has been the central unresolved tragedy of my life. It has caused me such incredible pain and uncertainty. How could you have served at my side and allowed me to… to seek your affections, to put myself on _display_ for you, when you possessed so much private knowledge of me?”

“I _wanted_ to tell you,” Jim insisted, tears coming to his eyes. He knew Spock had every right to be angry, but he just didn’t feel strong enough to take it. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted! But when Starfleet took me out of the Tarsus records, they said I could never contact you again. They said you would be in danger because if Kodos found out there were people who could identify him, he might go after them. He might use you to get to me. And it turns out I was right all along!” The reality that his fears had been entirely justified was starting to really sink in, and it was spinning Jim’s anxiety tight in his chest.

Spock was watching him evenly. “But certainly after accepting me as your first officer, you could have told me the truth?”

“I didn’t even know if you remembered me! I thought I had erased myself from your memory completely _until yesterday_. I wasn’t going to give you _more_ memories about this trauma you were recovering from, memories that might put you in danger, just so that I could force myself on you.”

“ _Force_ yourself on me? I believe I have made my desire for you quite clear.”

“Well, yeah, but by the time I realized that, I had been keeping this from you for the whole four years we've served together. Kodos was still out there somewhere so I still couldn’t tell you, and it would have been wrong to start a relationship with you when I knew all your secrets. Look, I get it! I’m a liar, and I dug a hole I didn’t know how to get out of! I _swear_ my intentions were good, but you’re right: I never should have let us serve together and get so close.

“But Spock, I missed you _so_ much! It was selfish, I know it was, I’m sorry, but breaking the bond was worst thing that ever happened to me! Worse than Tarsus, worse than Kodos, worse than _anything_! I just—” he choked on a sob. “I just needed you so much, however I could get you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

Spock reached out and took his hands, squeezing tightly. Jim gasped, trying to get enough air in and failing. His emotions were escalating into a frenzy.

“You are holding yourself to too high a standard,” Spock said. “You are not a liar. Although it will of course require expansion at a later time, your explanation is sufficient for now. I understand why you made the choices you did. Or at least, I believe I do. I require one clarification: _do_ you still love me?”

Jim stared at him, aghast. Maybe if he was calmer he could have understood why Spock needed to ask that question and hear its answer, but in this moment it seemed insane, absurd. Spock still had no idea what loving him had put Jim through, and the enormity of trying to explain it built inside him on a wave of panic.

Desperate for an outlet to break the overwhelming torrent of emotion, Jim tore his hands away and punched the nearest wall. “OF. COURSE. I. DO!” he screamed, hitting the wall on each word. Spock’s hands shot out and restrained him, but he had totally unraveled now into screaming, struggling uselessly against Spock's alien-strong hold.

“Do you honestly think I could have stopped? I _never_ got over you! It was torture being away from you, I _couldn’t_ say no when you asked to be my first officer, I just couldn’t be so far away from you anymore, I couldn’t do it! I don’t even know _how_ to love anyone else! There’s no happiness for me without you and I’ve known that from the second I started destroying the bond! Of _course_ I still love you, I’ve always loved you, I always _will_ love you, I—”

Spock let go of his hands and grabbed his face. “Jim! I hear you, _ashaya_ , I hear you. You must calm down.”

“I CAN’T,” Jim screamed. “I can't! Do you know where my headaches come from, Spock? From the fucking broken bond! I love you so much I’ve been in physical pain for 11 years! Do I still love you? _Do I still love you_?”

Spock pulled Jim into his arms, firmly steering his head against his shoulder. Jim buried his face there and sobbed, clutching Spock’s upper arms like lifelines.

“Be calm,” Spock shushed, stroking his hair. “Be calm.”

He let Jim cry against him for a long time, long enough that Jim finally wilted against him, nothing left but the tears he couldn’t seem to stop from running down his face into Spock’s shirt.

Eventually, Spock said, “I know you are exhausted, but could I share your mind? I wish to assess the damage to you brain.” He paused, continuing in a softer voice. “And I confess that I am desperate to be within you again.”

Totally unable to answer, Jim simply took Spock’s hand and lifted it to his face, arranging it on his meld points. He closed his eyes and leaned into the pressure of Spock’s fingers.

He expected Spock to explore the site of the broken bond and probably sift gently through his memories, experience their story through Jim’s eyes. And perhaps that was Spock’s intention, but it wasn’t what happened. Not even close.

The second Spock’s mind touched Jim’s own, a glittering explosion of light burst between them. It was like rows and rows of walls crashing down in one incredible chain reaction, each revealing a brighter and sweeter country beyond. All of a sudden Jim could see, in his mind’s eye, the crude structure under which he had buried Spock’s awareness of him when he was 14. It was flying apart brick by brick to reveal the neurological tangle Jim had tried so hard to destroy, which unfurled now in glorious arcs. Spock’s complete memories were falling into place, holes burned in them healing over, Jim’s eyes and face and name repopulating Spock’s understanding of the lost boy.

In Jim’s own brain, the raw, empty place he had always assumed was the stump of the broken bond bloomed and expanded, knitting itself with the psychic fibers sailing outward from Spock’s mind. Spock’s emotions—his awe, shock, and all-encompassing love—filled every corner of Jim’s awareness.

Then the psychic imagery was gone as suddenly as it had appeared: Spock had withdrawn his hand and pushed Jim gently away to hold at arms length. Spock was gasping, panting really, staring at Jim in amazement. But Jim was still aware of a clear, bright path between their minds, their emotions zinging along it. The howling crater where all his headaches started was gone; in its place was a warm impression that was entirely _Spock_.

“What the fuck just happened?” His voice came out entirely hysterical.

“ _Jim,_ ” Spock said, voice equal parts distress and wonder. “Were you _unaware_ that you were living with half-blocked bond?”

Jim was swaying dangerously. Spock tightened his grip, steadying him. “I don’t know what that means!”

“You did not break the bond at all,” Spock said, and Jim experienced a rush of vertigo that made the ship feel like it was doing a barrel roll. “You blocked my side of it so completely that I did not know it was still intact. But you did not block your own side—you left it exposed and unmoored with no feedback from my mind at all. Your brain has been screaming for me for 11 years. You must have been in _agony_.”

The first hiccupy sobs of another round of panic attack started up in Jim’s chest. Spock reached out and cupped Jim’s cheek in his hand, probably trying to keep him from going off the rails again.

“I– what do you mean, I didn’t break it? We were bonded this whole time?”

“ _Yes._ ”

“And… and are we now?”

“Yes!” Spock was practically laughing but there was a distinct hysteria to it, as well as a horrified sadness in his eyes—no, in the bond. “Oh, Jim. What you have gone through is unimaginable. Your nightmare never truly ended, did it?”

“No,” Jim admitted in a whisper.

Spock pulled Jim’s head back down to his shoulder and held him tight. Jim could feel a whirring of activity in Spock’s mind—fear for Jim’s health, reinvigorated trauma, euphoric relief. But for now, Spock didn’t express any of that out loud. He just cradled Jim as he went increasingly limp and murmured, "You have been taking care of me for so long. It is your turn to be cared for now.”

Jim rested, stunned, against Spock’s shoulder and for a long time they just sat together on the cold floor, curled around each other. The bond tingled like a healed-over scar, still tender and aching.

—-

The next day, the _Enterprise_ returned to Starbase 4 and delivered Kodos the Executioner to the authorities. The recorded evidence was more than sufficient cause for him to be held and tried for the crimes of the Tarsus IV disaster.

Jim and Spock stood together on the bridge and watched out the observation window as Starbase 4 grew smaller and smaller, until they went to warp and it was wrenched out of sight. For the first time in 11 years, Jim knew where Kodos was, and was sure that he couldn’t get to Spock.

Bones had allowed them to stay on duty only until Kodos’s transfer was complete, and for once neither of them complained about escaping back to their quarters. They undressed and brushed their teeth together in silence, already totally accustomed to acting like the old married couple they apparently were.

It was incredibly intense to have Spock’s mind settled in his own, and that combined with the sheer terror of the past few days had stripped every ounce of Jim’s energy. Now that the mission was well and truly over and Kodos was no longer on board, Jim was rapidly losing the ability to do anything but be asleep.

He listed to one side trying to get his communicator into its port on his bedside table, but Spock was suddenly behind him, holding him up.

“Lie down now, please.”

Jim was happy to comply, stumbling to the bed and collapsing onto his back. Spock followed more gracefully, slipping in beside Jim and tucking the covers around them, propping up on an elbow to hover over Jim and trace his eyebrows with one long, alien finger.

“You must sleep now. You are barely awake as it is.”

Jim grunted in agreement and gently shoved Spock onto his back so that he could tuck up against his chest. He was almost totally submerged in the blissful fuzz of unconsciousness when Spock’s PADD dinged with an emergency chime, causing both of them to jump and scramble up into duty-ready positions.

But when Spock managed to grab his PADD he actually full-out rolled his eyes, something Jim had never seen him do before. It was adorable, but Jim’s heart was still racing. “What’s happening?”

Spock silenced the ringer and ran a soothing hand against Jim’s arm. “It is only my sister, do not worry.”

“Wait, what if something’s wrong with her?”

“It is not—this is the emergency channel she uses when she wishes to speak with me and refuses to wait. She uses a different channel if there is an actual emergency.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Yes.”

Jim shook his head and flopped back down. Spock answered the comm, holding up the PADD so Michael could see his face. He kindly made sure Jim was out of frame.

“Spock!” Michael Burnham’s voice filled Jim’s quarters. “Phillipa just received a report that Kodos was taken into custody on your ship. Are you alright?”

“I am entirely safe, Michael, do not worry. We have delivered Kodos to Starbase 4 and provided compelling evidence of his identity. He will not regain his freedom.”

Jim heard Michael sigh in relief. Admittedly, he had abandoned his attempt to sleep so that he could listen to Spock’s conversation. He knew Spock and Michael spoke often but he had never been privy to one of their non-professional conversations.

“But how do you feel?”

Spock looked away briefly and took a breath. “It was, as you can imagine, an extremely distressing mission. It has caused many memories and traumatic symptoms to resurface. But I am under Doctor’s McCoy’s care and am stable.”

“Very well,” Michael said, her tone slightly doubtful. “What happened?”

“May I provide you with precise details at a later time? I admit I am extremely fatigued and would prefer not to revisit the past two days until I have rested.”

“Of course, Spock. But are you truly secure for the moment? Is Jim being accommodating?”

“Entirely.”

“I assume you had to tell him about Tarsus? Sorry, sorry—you said you didn’t want to talk about it.”

Spock glanced at Jim. He smiled reassuringly and, out of the line of Michael’s sight, rubbed Spock’s knee. “Apologies are unnecessary, Michael. Jim and I did speak about my history, and the conversations were… revelatory. I have much to tell you: may we speak again tomorrow?”

“Of course, _pi’sa-kai_. Shall I comm Mother and _Sa-Mekh_ and tell them to leave you alone for a few days?”

Spock gave her a tiny smile. “That would be much appreciated. _Rom-halan_.”

“Talk to you tomorrow.”

Spock ended the call and returned his PADD to the bedside table. He settled back down, turning onto his side so he was facing Jim, their chests touching and legs tangled up.

“Your sister really loves you, huh?” Jim asked, running a hand through Spock’s hair.

“We are close. She is protective of me.”

“You could have told her about us if you wanted to. You didn’t need to ask my permission first or anything.”

“I would much rather spend this time _with_ you than speaking about you to others.”

Jim buried his face against Spock’s chest. “Ugh, we have so many people to tell. Our families, the crew, _Starfleet_. Oh my god, that’s going to be the most awkward conversation we’ve ever had with brass.”

“Starfleet’s reaction does not matter,” Spock said seriously, rubbing the back of Jim’s head. “It is against Federation law to separate a couple bonded in the Vulcan way. It can be easily proven by a mind healer that we were ignorant of the bond until yesterday. Thus Starfleet is required to accommodate us and if they are uncomfortable or offended, it is no concern of ours.”

Jim snorted at Spock’s dismissal. “It’s almost like you don’t care about anything but our bond right now.”

“I have been longing for it, and for you, for more time than was bearable. It admit it is my current focus, yes, and I do not actually anticipate that changing for the duration of our lives together.”

Jim grinned into Spock’s shirt and snuggled a little closer.

“To return to the matter of Vulcan mind healers,” Spock said quietly, “I wish for you to be telepathically evaluated. I am not personally trained in the healing arts and it should be established whether or not you sustained any lasting damage from years of living with a half-blocked bond. We also require confirmation that your chronic headaches are indeed cured.”

“Ok,” Jim muttered sleepily. “That’s probably smart.”

“If it is acceptable to you,” Spock said after a long moment, and Jim noticed a slight uncertainty in his voice, “perhaps we could take a short leave on New Vulcan. Not only are the most highly skilled healers located there, I also admit that I wish to reveal our marital status to my family in person. They may... struggle to believe me. If you are willing to accompany me and confirm my announcement, I would be very grateful.”

Jim drew back and looked up at Spock in confusion. “Why wouldn’t they believe you? I mean I know they thought you had made me up before, but with all the evidence...”

Spock took a deep breath. He had flushed slightly green but met Jim’s eyes unflinchingly. “I may have not fully expressed the extent and effect of their skepticism. When I returned from Tarsus, I was… disturbed. I did eventually confess to my parents that I had been separated from my bondmate, but given my mental deterioration, it seemed most likely to them that I had imagined you. In the end, I was sent to Gol to restabilize my logic and self-control. My belief in you was one of several factors which resulted in that outcome.”

Jim’s chest contracted. “God, Spock. I’m so sorry.”

“I will not permit you to be. Your experiences after Tarsus were undoubtedly more harrowing than mine: you were abandoned and left to fend for yourself without resources. I had the support of my family, and my time at Gol was actually quite helpful. The _kolinahru_ I worked most closely with, T’Ora, is in fact the healer I would prefer evaluate your mind. She was a touchstone for me in a time of great distress, and I trust her to care for you appropriately.” Spock’s face went a bit sheepish. “And I confess I would… like for her to know that my husband was real after all.”

Jim smiled weakly. He was starting to feel extremely overwhelmed, and he didn’t have the energy for it.

“Ok, Spock. As soon as we wake up I’ll arrange for us to go to the colony.”

Spock nodded. “Thank you, Jim."

“We have so much left to talk about,” Jim realized, feeling slightly panicky at the thought.

Spock stroked his hair back from his forehead. “But we do not need to do so now. Jim, we are not simply going to be cured of our trauma because we have found each other again. There are still many hurdles to overcome, but there is no rush to do so. We are stronger together, and I feel more capable of confronting the darkness in my life with you at my side.”

Jim closed his eyes against the tidal wave of feelings Spock stirred up in him. “Me too.”

Spock pulled Jim tighter against him. “Sleep now. There is time enough to make plans and have conversations.”

“I love you,” Jim said quietly.

“And I you, _adun_."

Maybe it was because they were so tired, or maybe it was because the bond was so newly restored to its fullness. Or maybe it would always be like this from now on. Whatever the reason, as Jim and Spock fell asleep, their minds drifted even closer together until they were dreaming as one.

_Low red sun against the twilight, making the tips of the waving grain glow like they were on fire. There was an ominous heaviness in the air, yes, but it felt far away. For now, Jim and Spock were lying head-to-head in their secret spot against the cliff face, cheeks pressed together and hands entwined. The air was warm, their bellies were full, and they were together in mind and body. They were safe._


End file.
